Hannah Arendt was one of the foremost political thinkers of the twentieth century, and her particular interests have made her one of the most frequently cited thinkers of our time. This Companion examines the primary themes of her multi-faceted work, from her theory of totalitarianism and her controversial idea of the 'banality of evil' to her classic studies of political action and her final reflections on judgment and the life of the mind. Each essay examines the political, philosophical, and historical (...) concerns which shaped Arendt's thought, and which prompted her to become one of the most unapologetic champions of the political life in the history of Western thought. (shrink)

This book addresses selected central questions in phenomenological psychology, a discipline that investigates the experience of self that emerges over the course of an individual’s life, while also outlining a new method, the formal indication, as a means of accessing personal experience while remaining faithful to its uniqueness. In phenomenological psychology, the psyche no longer refers to an isolated self that remains unchanged by life’s changing situations, but is rather a phenomenon which manifests itself and constantly takes form over the (...) course of a person’s unique existence. Thus, the formal indication allows us to study the way in which ipseity relates to the world in different situations, in a way that holds different meanings for different people. Based on this new approach, phenomenological psychotherapy marks a transition from a mode of grasping the truth about oneself through reflection, to a mode of accessing the disclosure of self through a work of self-transformation that requires the person to actually change her position on herself. By putting forward this method, the authors shed new light on the dynamic interplay between a person’s historicity and uniqueness on the one hand, and the related physiopathological mechanisms on the other, providing evidence from the fields of genetics, cardiology, the neurosciences and psychiatry. The book will appeal to a broad readership, from psychiatrists, psychologist and psychotherapists, to researchers in these fields. (shrink)

- Tutti i movimenti spirituali che sembrano oggi riscuotere successo nella nostra societÀ prevedono un coinvolgimento della corporeitÀ, propongono una risacralizzazione del corpo. Fra questi nuovi movimenti sono emersi ormai da anni con una certa forza quelli di derivazione orientale, che propongono la pratica della meditazione quale via salvifica e per il corpo e per la mente. La meditazione, infatti, lungi dall'essere un'attivitÀ eminentemente riflessiva, si presenta sempre come una pratica esperienziale totalizzante, che implica un coinvolgimento pieno non solo della (...) mente, ma anche dell'emotivitÀ e della corporeitÀ. (shrink)

The changing situation in South Africa and Eastern Europe prompts Charles Villa-Vicencio to investigate the implications of transforming liberation theology into a theology of reconstruction and nation-building. Such a transformation, he argues, requires theology to become an unambiguously interdisciplinary study. This book explores the encounter between theology, on the one hand, and constitutional writing, law-making, human rights, economics, and the freedom of conscience on the other. Placing his discussion in the context of the South African struggle, the author compares (...) this situation to that in Eastern Europe, and the challenge of what is happening in these situations is identified for contexts where "the empire has not yet crumbled.". (shrink)

This paper proves that it is possible to build a Lagrangian for quantum electrodynamics which makes it explicit that the photon mass is eventually set to zero in the physical part on observational ground. Gauge independence is achieved upon considering the joint effect of gauge-averaging term and ghost fields. It remains possible to obtain a counterterm Lagrangian where the only non-gauge-invariant term is proportional to the squared divergence of the potential, while the photon propagator in momentum space falls off like (...) k −2 at large k which indeed agrees with perturbative renormalizability. The resulting radiative corrections to the Coulomb potential in QED are also shown to be gauge-independent. The experience acquired with quantum electrodynamics is used to investigate properties and problems of the extension of such ideas to non-Abelian gauge theories. (shrink)

This essay takes a critical look at the rubric “age of terror,” a rubric which has enjoyed a certain amount of theoretical and philosophical cachet in recent years. My argument begins by noting the continuity between this hypostatization and contemporary “war on terror” rhetoric, a continuity that is, in certain respects, ironic given the politics of the “age of terror” theorists. It then moves—via Machiavelli, Max Weber, and Hannah Arendt—to a consideration of the topics of state violence (on the one (...) hand) and totalitarian terror (on the other). I use Arendt’s theorization of totalitarian terror for a dual purpose: first, to emphasize the gap between totalitarian terror and the more familiar “terror as means”; second, to question the characterization of recent Islamic terrorism as totalitarian in essence. Arendt’s distinctions between violence, terror and totalitarian terror help us avoid the Schmittian logic installed by advocates of the “war on terror” and by a variety of writers anxious to identify a ill-defined and generic “totalitarianism” as the transhistorical and transcultural “other” of liberalism. Keywords : terror; islamic terrorism; Hannah Arendt; Max Weber; totalitarianism; “Age of Terror”; liberalism; Machiavelli; evil as policy (Published online: 25 August, 2008) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics 2008. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v1i3.1861. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo principal hacer un análisis sobre cuál es el papel que tiene el uso de los dispositivos móviles en la apropiación de los diversos espacios de ciudad, dicho análisis se desarrolla al margen de la investigación sobre el desarrollo de una aplicación para dispositivos móviles que permita el correcto uso de los gimnasios al aire libre en la ciudad de Medellín – Colombia. Esta investigación fue apoyada por los entes nacionales COLCIENCIAS y COLDEPORTES y permitió (...) visualizar cómo los seres humanos han encontrado en sus “gadgets” una nueva forma de estar, sentir la ciudadanía y ser en la ciudad. La era de la información y la cultura de la conectividad, ha catalizado notablemente nuevas posibilidades para la comprensión del espacio público, la aprehensión y comprensión de la ciudad, la conformación de grupos y asociaciones en relación con gustos, actividades y luchas conjuntas, es decir, los dispositivos móviles se están consolidando como la ventana contemporánea, que permite ver, encontrarse y conocer la ciudad o cualquiera de sus actores, con la ventaja de estar siempre al alcance de la mano. (shrink)

Every theory is based on a rationality that implies a definition of reality (ontology) and its related epistemological definition; hence every theory perceives certain shapes and contents of reality different from one another. That perceived implies a certain way to construct knowledge, i.e., resear..

I argue that men can be oppressed by virtue of being men; however, our definitions of men and masculinity must be redefined and reclaimed from the dominant white perspective. My claims are: (1) current arguments on the oppression of men simpliciter are misguided as they fail to encompass the experiences of all men; (2) any question regarding the oppression of men must reject the current static and universal definition of men; (3) the oppression of men is an instantiation of structural (...) oppression that allows for men to be both privileged and oppressed in different, forms, degrees, and dimensions; (4) the oppression of Latino men qua Latino men is an example of men being oppressed as men. Therefore, (5) we must redefine and reclaim the definition of “men” and “masculinity.” Last, (6) this redefinition cannot be done a priori but must use intersectionality as a regulative method to illuminate the oppression of men that remains obscured in other, one-dimensional approaches to the topic of the oppression of men. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo reflexionar acerca de las herramientas teóricas y metodológicas que ofrece el análisis crítico del discurso para la comprensión del fenómeno del suicidio. En este sentido se proponen dos discusiones que son centrales para comprender esta relación. En primer lugar, se plantea una crítica sobre las formas de comprender la relación entre suicidio y los medios de comunicación desde la idea de la imitación. Posteriormente se discute la importancia de concebir el suicidio como una práctica (...) atravesada por construcciones sociales, políticas y culturales que no se limita de manera exclusiva la psicopatología. Finalmente se expone cómo el análisis crítico del discurso puede generar modos de comprender el suicidio que relativicen los discursos hegemónicos a que dan lugar ciertas exigencias de carácter epistemológico y tecno-científico. (shrink)

The concurrence of different languages is one of the tenets of Rosenzweig Sprachdenken and of his translation activity which finds its main theoretical explication in the afterword to his ‘Zweiundneunzig Hymnen und Gedichte des Yehuda Halevi’ (Konstanz, Wöhrle, 1924). In the afterword to the translation of ha-Levi’s lyrical corpus, Rosenzweig outlines a translation model which, trying to convey all the morphological, syntactic and lexical traits of the source language into the target language, gives way to a real linguistic fusion which (...) defies the limits and boundaries of expression and opens onto a redemptive perspective. On the basis of this concluding note and of some passages from ‘The Star of Redemption’, the article tries to analyse Rosenzweig’s idea of language and of its nexus with the idea of redemption with reference to Walter Benjamin’s famous essay ‘The Task of the Translator’ and, as a point of convergence, with Paul Celan’s conception of poetic language. (shrink)

La reelección presidencial puede analizarse desde una doble perspectiva: la perspectiva personal o la institucional. Mirarla desde el ángulo del enfoque personal, le resta posibilidad al debate, por cuanto no puede desconocerse que el presidente Álvaro Uribe genera comportamientos pasionales entre seguidores y contradictores. U nos lo defienden con ardentía por sus logros en seguridad, y otros lo atacan con pasión por el escaso avance en las políticas de empleo y lucha contra la pobreza. Lo cierto es que por este (...) camino, al final los argumentos se reducirían al amor o desamor que sienten los colombianos frente al primer mandatario. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene el propósito de reflexionar sobre los conceptos de Dasein, tiempo y mundo en la construcción filosófica de Martín Heidegger. Para ello, el autor propone considerar que Dasein es el mismo ser humano que pregunta y responde por el ser, que puede transformarse y desplegar todas sus posibilidades y que debe estar abierto a sí mismo, al mundo y a los demás. Al tiempo lo mira como un elemento integrante de la existencia humana, en el que se producen (...) los acontecimientos y constituye horizonte para toda la comprensión del ser, y que puede estudiarse como tiempo de la vida cotidiana, de la naturaleza y del mundo. En tanto que al mundo lo entiende como aquello que preexiste al ser, de lo que somos inseparables y que de alguna manera determina nuestra existencia porque estamos inmersos en su dinámica y en sus problemas. Este escrito concluye que el enfoque de Heidegger es sobre la existencia humana y que con base en estos conceptos ofrece una mirada práctica que lleva al hombre a la autorreflexión, a la autocomprensión, lo que le permite construir su proyecto de vida y alcanzar la autenticidad. (shrink)

No vive la descentralización un buen momento. Contra ella se han enfilado potentes baterías que quieren limitarla. La responsabilizan, sin razón, de ser la causante del enorme déficit fiscal de la Nación. El presidente Uribe considera que “Esa fórmula es insostenible. Si me dicen que hay que regresar a esa fórmula yo no me siento capaz de despejar el futuro macroeconómico de la Nación en este Gobierno.” Así que de nuevo los medios de financiación de la descentralización están en discusión. (...) Por la importancia que tiene esta iniciativa para el futuro de municipios y departamentos, es previsible que se convierta en uno de los puntos centrales del debate nacional de los próximos meses. Aunque nadie desconoce la necesidad de descentralizar y todos reconocen los logros alcanzados a partir del comienzo del proceso en 1986, los recursos que le dan viabilidad y la sostienen corren graves peligros. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an innovative reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by reflecting on the cultural horizon that influenced the composition of the novel, namely the Naturphilosophie of the Romantic period, characterized by the interpenetration of matter and spirit, visible and invisible. Its major development occurred in German aesthetics of the 18th century, where the union of sensibility and imagination was harmonically realized through a special fusion of philosophy and literature. Thanks to this encounter, philosophy regained its link with (...) the universal and literature became capable of “telling” the invisible without falling into arbitrariness. From this theoretical perspective, the monster created by Shelley is not a creative failure, but something enormous that terrifies because it transcends both our sensitive faculty and our imaginative capacity. Monster is described here as the place of interaction between visible and invisible, which only the artist – by placing himself in the middle of this relationship – is able to narrate. (shrink)

In this paper the author reconstructs the Klagesian positions that, according to him, have possibly inspired Walter Benjamin in his reflection on “aura”. Ludwig Klages’ thought, in fact, and especially the notion of “Nimbus-Aura”, had an interesting resonance in the work of Walter Benjamin. The author shows that Benjamin has probably shared with Klages the idea that human history is indeed rooted in what we might call “myth”, differently from Theodor Adorno, who intends to criticize Klages’ influence in Benjamin’s notion (...) of “aura”, dialectilizing the mythical “origin” and characterizing it as fiction. In the author’s view, moreover, if in Klages this root receives nourishment from the universal symbolism of matter, that Klages intends as originally “auratic”, in Benjamin this root becomes the starting point through which, by means of artistic reproducibility, the human pattern moves away from the myth. (shrink)

In this paper the author reconstructs the Klagesian positions that, according to him, have possibly inspired Walter Benjamin in his reflection on “aura”. Ludwig Klages’ thought, in fact, and especially the notion of “Nimbus-Aura”, had an interesting resonance in the work of Walter Benjamin. The author shows that Benjamin has probably shared with Klages the idea that human history is indeed rooted in what we might call “myth”, differently from Theodor Adorno, who intends to criticize Klages’ influence in Benjamin’s notion (...) of “aura”, dialectilizing the mythical “origin” and characterizing it as fiction. In the author’s view, moreover, if in Klages this root receives nourishment from the universal symbolism of matter, that Klages intends as originally “auratic”, in Benjamin this root becomes the starting point through which, by means of artistic reproducibility, the human pattern moves away from the myth. (shrink)

The new phenomenological and aesthetic paradigm of atmospheres, conceived as feelings spread out in the external space and not as private moods, is tested here from different points of view and different disciplines in the context of a full valorization of the so-called "affective turn" in Humanities.

This paper aims to address the difficulties of high school students in bridging their computational understanding with their visualization skills in understanding the notion of the limits in their calculus class. This research used a pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design research on 62 grade 10 students enrolled in the Science, Technology, and Engineering Program (STEP) in one of the public high schools in Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines. A series of remedial sessions were given to help them understand the function values, one-sided (...) limits, limits of a function, and its discontinuities with the aid of the GeoGebra. Results revealed that there is a significant improvement in their mathematics performance before and after the remediation, t(61) = -19.99, p<.05. The real-time feedback provided by the drawing interface of GeoGebra has provided the students the insights into how objects behave in geometrical space, bridging their understanding in locating the values shown by the computational algebraic processes. Additionally, the significant difference in the achievement reveals a large effect size (Cohen’s =2.54) which could be accounted for by the remediation using interactive activities in the GeoGebra. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean (...) theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God. After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's rich and varied political thought is more influential today than ever before, due in part to the collapse of communism and the need for ideas that move beyond the old ideologies of the Cold War. As Dana Villa shows, however, Arendt's thought is often poorly understood, both because of its complexity and because her fame has made it easy for critics to write about what she is reputed to have said rather than what she actually wrote. (...) class='Hi'>Villa sets out to change that here, explaining clearly, carefully, and forcefully Arendt's major contributions to our understanding of politics, modernity, and the nature of political evil in our century.Villa begins by focusing on some of the most controversial aspects of Arendt's political thought. He shows that Arendt's famous idea of the banality of evil--inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann--does not, as some have maintained, lessen the guilt of war criminals by suggesting that they are mere cogs in a bureaucratic machine. He examines what she meant when she wrote that terror was the essence of totalitarianism, explaining that she believed Nazi and Soviet terror served above all to reinforce the totalitarian idea that humans are expendable units, subordinate to the all-determining laws of Nature or History. Villa clarifies the personal and philosophical relationship between Arendt and Heidegger, showing how her work drew on his thought while providing a firm repudiation of Heidegger's political idiocy under the Nazis. Less controversially, but as importantly, Villa also engages with Arendt's ideas about the relationship between political thought and political action. He explores her views about the roles of theatricality, philosophical reflection, and public-spiritedness in political life. And he explores what relationship, if any, Arendt saw between totalitarianism and the "great tradition" of Western political thought. Throughout, Villa shows how Arendt's ideas illuminate contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and democracy and how they deepen our understanding of philosophers ranging from Socrates and Plato to Habermas and Leo Strauss.Direct, lucid, and powerfully argued, this is a much-needed analysis of the central ideas of one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. (shrink)

. The ‘common good’ spirituality of Louis-Joseph Lebret and his influence in the Constitution and development thinking in Brazil. Journal of Global Ethics: Vol. 17, Lebret and the Projects of Économie Humaine, Integral Human Development, and Development Ethics, Guest Editors Des Gasper and Lori Keleher, pp. 185-203.

Este artículo examina las medidas adoptadas por el Gobierno de Colombia para atender las necesidades de la población diagnosticada con coinfección de los virus de inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) y de hepatitis C (VHC), inclusive las personas privadas de la libertad, y de esa manera garantizar su derecho fundamental a la salud. Para verificar tales acciones, se realiza una revisión de las guías elaboradas por el Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social y la Cuenta de Alto Costo, en las que se (...) aborda el panorama de estas enfermedades, así como los mecanismos legales para acceder al tratamiento. Los hallazgos indican que, si bien el Sistema de Salud en Colombia no es excelente, lo cierto es que se evidenció la gestión de los últimos gobiernos para implementar una política de prevención de tales enfermedades, así como, para destinar mayores recursos públicos que permitan una adecuada satisfacción de las necesidades sanitarias de este grupo vulnerable. (shrink)