The aim of this study was to understand how mothers experienced midwives' uncaring behaviour and actions during birth. Sixty-seven first-time mothers took part in the study, in which data were collected through interview. The interview text was analysed using hermeneutic text analysis. Nearly half of the mothers interviewed (n = 32) said that midwives did not care for them. The findings show that midwives' behaviour was humiliating when they ignored mothers and held them in contempt. The mothers felt further humiliated (...) when the midwives did not believe them, treated their bodies in a careless manner and tended to put blame on them. Through their behaviour and actions, some midwives have shown that they no longer have a caring attitude as an element of their professional practice and that they have ignored ethics by offending mothers' sense of dignity. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, perhaps the most influential of all German philosophers, made one of the last great attempts to develop philosophy as an all-embracing scientific system. This system places Hegel among the “classical” philosophers—Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza—who also attempted to build grand conceptual edifices. In this study, available for the first time in paperback, Howard P. Kainz emphasizes the uniqueness of Hegel's system by focusing on his methodology, terminology, metaphorical and paradoxical language, and his special contributions to metaphysics, the (...) philosophy of nature, philosophical anthropology, and other areas. Kainz focuses on Hegel's system as a whole and its seminal ideas, making generous use of representative texts. He gives special attention to the interrelationship between dialectical methodology and paradoxical propositions; the prevalence of metaphor in the philosophy of nature; and the close interrelationship between Christian doctrine and Hegelian speculation. A rich array of diagrams and tables further elucidates Kainz's analyses. An ideal text for the student of philosophy coming to Hegel for the first time, G. W. F. Hegel provides the reader with useful insights into Hegel's work and illuminates Hegel's enduring significance in the late twentieth century. (shrink)

A reexamination of democracy, which during the eighteenthcentury Enlightenment seemed to offer a much-desired escape from arbitrary class structures and oppressive governments, but has not proven to be a sure formula or a simple solution. An awareness of the true complexities of democracy requires an understanding of a perennial dialectic residing at the heart of democracy, and manifesting itself in specific dialectical relationships: between elitism and populism, liberty and equality, smallness and bigness, religion and secular life, politics and economics, etc. (...) This book argues that such dialectical relationships, originally most explicit in particular nations, are also manifest in international relations. (shrink)

"Dialectic" is a fulcrum word. Aristotle attacked this belief, saying that the dialectic was only suitable for some purpose- to enquire into men's beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known as Ideas, which were fixed and un changing and constituted reality for Plato. Aristotle said there is also the method of science, or "physical" method, which observes physical facts and arrives at truths about substances, which undergo change. This duality ofform and substance and the scientific method (...) of arriving at facts about substances were central to Aristotle's philosophy. Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was ab solutely essential for Aristotle, and "dialectic" was and still is a fulcrum word . . . I think it was Coleridge who said everyone is either a Plato nist or an Aristotelian . . . Plato is the essential Buddha-seeker who appears again and again in each generation, moving on ward and upward toward the "one. " Aristotle is the eternal motorcycle mechanic who prefers the "many. " R. (shrink)

War is only the sad recourse in the state of nature by which each state asserts its right by violence and in which neither party can be adjudged unjust ; in lieu of such a decision, the issue of the conflict decides on which side justice lies. We may well be astonished that the word “law” has not yet been banished from war politics as pedantic, and that no state has yet been bold enough to advocate [this banishment]. Up to (...) the present, Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel, and many other irritating comforters have been cited in justification of war, though their code, philosophically or diplomatically formulated, has not and cannot have the least legal force, because states as such do not stand under a common external power.—Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace. (shrink)

The doctrines of the Hellenistic Schools - Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics - are known to have had a formative influence on later thought, but because the primary sources are lost, they have to be reconstructed from later reports. This important collection of essays by one of the foremost interpreters of Hellenistic philosophy focuses on key questions in epistemology and ethics debated by Greek and Roman philosophers of the Hellenistic period. There is currently a new awareness of the great interest and (...) influence of Hellenistic philosophy. In bringing together a major collection of scholarly and interpretative studies by a leading figure in the field, this volume is a boon to philosophers and classicists who work on the Hellenistic period, but also to students keen to enrich their understanding of the history of epistemology and ethics. (shrink)

This paper discusses the myths regarding both the conceptualization and the expected effects that are implicitly or explicitly presented in analyses of the so-called ‘democratic innovations’, that is, the new institutions that aim to increase public participation beyond regular elections. It is argued that these myths, together with the (fictitious) confrontation between direct and indirect politics, have generated false oppositions and reductionisms that mask the debate and limit empirical approximations to democratic innovation. A research agenda based on the concept of (...) ‘participatory ecologies’ is suggested as a way to gain an understanding of the mechanisms of participation in a systematic way.Este artículo analiza los mitos que se han construido, tanto en un plano conceptual como de efectos esperados, en torno a las denominadas innovaciones democráticas, entendidas como instituciones destinadas a incrementar la participación ciudadana más allá de las elecciones. Argumentamos que tanto estos mitos como la (ficticia) confrontación entre política directa e indirecta ha generado falsas oposiciones y reduccionismos que enmascaran el debate y limitan el estudio empírico de la innovación democrática. Una agenda de investigación basada en el concepto de ecologías participativas se sugiere para el entendimiento de los mecanismos de participación en forma sistemática. (shrink)

During the IAEA’s Mobile Radioisotope Exhibition (1960–1965) through the eventful roads of five Latin American countries (Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia), a variety of photographs were taken by an unknown Mexican official photographer, and by Josef Obermayer, a staff driver from Vienna. The exhibition carried not only bits of nuclear sciences and technologies, but also the political symbolism of the ‘friendly atom’ as a token of modernization. The photographs embarked on different trajectories, though all of them ended up at (...) the training and exchange official’s desk in charge of the exhibition, Argentinian physicist Arturo Cairo. The ones taken in Mexico also had a local circulation as propaganda intended to promote radioisotope applications. The two sets of images were intended to show the contrast between modernity and traditional society, but they did it from different gazes. Our paper argues that, in the case of Mexico, the photographer reinforced representations of the country which were already popularized by Hollywood for foreign and local audiences. On the other hand, the Viennese photographer’s gaze delivers an autoethnography of his dutiful journey. We also argue that Obermayer’s projection is one of what Roger Bartra has conceptualized as the ‘salvage on the mirror’. (shrink)

Scepticism has been one of the standard problems of epistemology in modern times. It takes various forms – the most general one being the thesis that knowledge is impossible; but equally prominent are such versions as the notorious doubt about the existence of an external world, inaugurated by Descartes'Meditations, or doubts about the existence of objective values. Philosophers who undertake to refute scepticism – still a very popular exercise – try to show that knowledge is possible after all, or to (...) prove the existence of an external world, and so on. Sceptics, generally speaking, are seen as radical doubters – philosophers who call into question assumptions that are usually taken for granted by ordinary people as well as by other philosophers. Those doubts have to be refuted by showing that they are in some way unjustified. (shrink)

El presente texto propone una lectura de A Feminist Theory of Refusal asumiendo como propia la doble clave teórica y política que el libro sostiene. En la primera parte se resumen los puntos centrales de Honig sobre el tipo de complejización e impurificación de la teoría vigente que el drama Las Bacantes de Eurípides habilitaría, y sobre la importancia de esta nueva conceptualización para la práctica política feminista. A continuación se formulan algunos interrogantes respecto del proceso histórico en el cual (...) este concepto deviene protagónico para la teoría política crítica y se señalan posibles limitaciones del mismo a la hora de describir el tipo de desafíos que enfrentan las luchas emancipatorias e igualitarias emprendidas por el movimiento feminista en Argentina. (shrink)

Myth & Symbol, Volume 6, Issue 2, Page 15-43, November 2010.

The story of Medea has exerted a powerful influence on creative artists since the time of Euripides. It is a tale that has been told in many ways and in several genres. This article offers a discussion of Christa Wolf's 1996 novel, Medea.Stimmen (Medea. Voices), a modern retelling through the voices, and conflicting perspectives, of the major characters involved with Medea, including Jason, Agameda, Akamas, Leukon, Glauce and Medea herself.Medea's role within feminist literary reception and women's literature cannot be overlooked (...) because of the crucial archetype she represents. One task of Feminist criticism has been to expose, deconstruct and rectify prevalent male (mis) interpretations of female archetypes, such as Medea, Medusa and others, and the patriarchal distortions they introduced through 3 000 years of male literature. In the patriarchal realm, Medea represents the Witch, the black Sorceress, and the archetype of the Negative Mother. These negative interpretations or archetypes may be attributed to misogynist perceptions of Medea as the vilest of women, because she committed the most despicable of all crimes — killing her children, the patriarchy's heirs — to take revenge on Jason, the husband who abandons her in Corinth (her place of exile) to marry Glauce, King Creon of Corinth's daughter, for reasons of political expedience.As a writer with her roots in the former East-German regime, Wolf perceives the Medea story as an account of a woman with both extraordinary powers and human shortcomings, who is misunderstood by the Colchians and the Corinthians alike. Wolf explores the distorted patriarchal motives for their loathing of Medea and Medea's ultimate powerlessness to do anything more than accept her tragic destiny. In doing so, Wolf does not attempt to manipulate the Medea story to suit the one-sidedness of some more radical feminist ideologies. (shrink)

The Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic, and is one of the most influential works in the history of thought. It is here that Aristotle sets out his system of syllogistic reasoning. The first book, to which this volume is devoted, offers a coherent presentation of Aristotle's logic as a general theory of deductive argument.

The Nuremberg Trials of leading National Socialists established the principle that individuals may be legally punished, even by death, for obeying the laws of their country. Is there then a higher law by which enacted valid positive laws may be judged, so that persons subject to such laws would be duty-bound to defy them? In recent years the theory of natural law has been revived by a number of philosophers and jurists, who however often disagree sharply among themselves about the (...) proper methods for defining and deriving natural law. Howard Kainz surveys the history of natural law from its foreshadowing in ancient Greece down to the most recent controversies. Natural Law both introduces the subject to newcomers and sheds fresh light on such figures as Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Veatch, McInerny, Grisez, and Finnis. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to examine a conception of happiness that seems to have become popular after the time of Plato and Aristotle: tranquillity or, as one might also say, peace of mind. This conception is interesting for two reasons: first, because it seems to come from outside the tradition that began with Plato or Socrates, second, because it is the only conception of eudaimonia in Greek ethics that identifies happiness with a state of mind and makes it (...) depend entirely on a person’s attitude or beliefs. In this way it may be closer to more recent ideas about happiness, notably those of utilitarians who treat “happiness” as a synonym of “pleasure,” than to the classical Greek conceptions of the good life. For Plato and Aristotle the happy life certainly had to be pleasant or enjoyable, but they did not think that happiness itself consisted in being pleased with one’s life. As the Stoic Seneca puts it, “it is not that virtue is chosen because it pleases, but that, if chosen, it also pleases.” I will argue that tranquillity was in fact not a serious contender for the position of ultimate good in ancient times. Greek theories of happiness from Plato to Epicurus were attempts to spell out what sort of a life one would have to lead in order to have good reasons for feeling tranquil or contented; they were not recipes for reaching a certain state of mind. Looking at the case of tranquillity will show, I think, that modern philosophers interested in questions about the good life might be well advised to follow the lead of their ancient predecessors. (shrink)

This essay argues that ancient Pyrrhonists did not decide to suspend judgment, but rather claimed to have found themselves unable to arrive at any judgment. By giving up the attempt, they also claimed to have unexpectedly reached tranquility, then followed the customs of ordinary life without ever claiming to have found the truth. This anti-rational attitude is not likely to be typical of ordinary people, nor would it seem desirable to modern defenders of ordinary practices like Fogelin.

In this paper I would like to examine a conception of happiness that seems to have become popular after the time of Plato and Aristotle: tranquillity or, as one might also say, peace of mind. This conception is interesting for two reasons: first, because it seems to come from outside the tradition that began with Plato or Socrates, second, because it is the only conception of eudaimonia in Greek ethics that identifies happiness with a state of mind and makes it (...) depend entirely on a person’s attitude or beliefs. In this way it may be closer to more recent ideas about happiness, notably those of utilitarians who treat “happiness” as a synonym of “pleasure,” than to the classical Greek conceptions of the good life. For Plato and Aristotle the happy life certainly had to be pleasant or enjoyable, but they did not think that happiness itself consisted in being pleased with one’s life. As the Stoic Seneca puts it, “it is not that virtue is chosen because it pleases, but that, if chosen, it also pleases.” I will argue that tranquillity was in fact not a serious contender for the position of ultimate good in ancient times. Greek theories of happiness from Plato to Epicurus were attempts to spell out what sort of a life one would have to lead in order to have good reasons for feeling tranquil or contented; they were not recipes for reaching a certain state of mind. Looking at the case of tranquillity will show, I think, that modern philosophers interested in questions about the good life might be well advised to follow the lead of their ancient predecessors. (shrink)

So far little are the studies that have focussed on exploring school principals’ self-conception of their distributed leadership competencies in relation to their managerial and teaching experience. To do so, an exploratory research was carried out with a sample of 163 pre-service and in-service school principals studying a Master’s programme in School Management, Innovation and Leadership at a Spanish University. Data were obtained by using an Ad hoc questionnaire of 7 units of competence and 5 proficiency levels for each unit, (...) based on an existing rubric to analyse students’ self-conception of their development of leadership competencies. The findings of this preliminary study show statistically significant differences in the self-perception in all dimensions associated to Managerial Experience and Teaching Experience in schools. Study participants with ME showed statistically higher levels than those who had non-ME in four of seven dimensions: lead the school organisation, address the needs of the students, manage the organisation of the school organisation, and manage administrative work. Similar results were obtained in relation to TE versus non-TE were statistically significant differences are found in six dimensions: manage pedagogical and didactic resources, attend to the needs of students, manage didactic strategies, manage the organisation of the school organisation, manage the link between the school organisation and the community, and lead the school organisation. This study shows the importance of teaching and professional experience to acquire leadership competencies in education, therefore the school principal should also be a teacher. This preliminary study provides insights into the relevance of providing pre-service or in-service school principals with training and professional development programmes on sustainability distributed leadership that enable them to genuinely engage the school community, develop innovative pedagogies and lead the process of change toward building more sustainable schools. (shrink)