In _The New Constitutionalism_, seven distinguished scholars develop an innovative perspective on the power of institutions to shape politics and political life. Believing that constitutionalism needs to go beyond the classical goal of limiting the arbitrary exercise of political power, the contributors argue that it should—and can—be designed to achieve economic efficiency, informed democratic control, and other valued political ends. More broadly, they believe that political and social theory needs to turn away from the negativism of critical theory to consider (...) how a good society should be "constituted" and to direct the work of designing institutions that can constitute a "good polity," in both the economic and civic senses. Stephen L. Elkin and Karol Edward Soltan begin with an overview of constitutionalist theory and a discussion of the new constitutionalism within the broader intellectual and historical context of political and social thought. Charles Anderson, James Ceaser, and the editors then offer different interpretations of the central issues regarding institutional design in a constitutionalist social science, consider various ways of performing the task, and discuss the inadequacy of recent political science to the job it ought to be doing. The book concludes with essays by Ted Lowi, Cass Sunstein and Edwin Haefele which apply these themes to the American regime. (shrink)

The purpose of this volume is to help develop, through a variety of exploratory essays, the art and science of institutional design. The authors look at a variety of good societies as artifacts, as products—at least partly—of design, and consider how such societies can be crafted. They identify themselves with the New Constitutionalism movement, which aims to develop and promote the knowledge necessary for institutional reform and institutional creation through understanding the designer's, creator's, founder's, or reformer's perspective. The first part (...) of the volume considers some of the boundaries of what is humanly possible in politico-economic designs and the role in them of deliberation and the processes of adapting to limits. The second part considers different ways of exercising constitutionalist judgment analyzing a variety of cases, including general visions of the good society. Looking at whole societies, and at complexes of institutions, complements and informs the picture of the institutional microscale. Understanding the microscale, on the other hand, often makes the difference between empty slogans and realistic political proposals. Contributors are Karol Edward Soltan, Elinor Ostrorn, Viktor J. Vanberg, James lvi. Buchanan, John S. Dryzek, Charles 'X". Anderson, Stephen U. Elkin, Car Alperovirz, and Philip Green. (shrink)

Cet article est un exposé des aspects ontologiques de la philosophie de Descartes à la lumière de l’ontologie existentielle et formelle de Roman Ingarden. Descartes pose le problème philosophique de ce qui est réel et tente de le résoudre conformément à la tradition en introduisant la problématique de la substance. La substance est une clé de voûte de la philosophie de Descartes qui fonctionne à différents niveaux de sa pensée comme une tentative de connexion de l’existence du réel et de (...) l’idéel. La problématique de la substance comprend des questions existentielles, où la substance est traitée comme catégorie, puis relève de l’ontologie formelle, où la substance fonctionne comme une quasi-nature catégoriale, qui permet de distinguer les différents domaines de la réalité. La substance comme catégorie se caractérise par (a) l’autosuffisance ontique ; (b) l’indépendance, qui s’associe à l’exclusion ontique, (c) la durabilité ontique, pour enfin être traitée comme (d) chose existante ( res existens ). Deuxièmement, la notion de substance comme étant sujet des propriétés ( hypokeimenon ) conduit à la reconnaître comme une quasi-nature constitutive, qui ensuite est prise en compte dans chacun des trois types de substances : Dieu, res cogitans et res extensa. (shrink)

Une réjouissante leçon inaugurale prononcée au Collège de France le jeudi 25 octobre 2012. On y appréciera tout particulièrement la chasse aux poncifs, qu'ils soient ceux de l'indicible ou du nombre, du mouvement ou de la structure, ainsi que le projet d'écarter les commentaires pour en revenir aux œuvres. Cette leçon est accessible en ligne également ici. J'ai souhaité que cette leçon se présente comme une question : « Comment parler de musique ? » Une question. Car il est clair, (...) concernant la nature de (...) - Musique et Musicologie – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Dans ce monde ou les conflits armes eclatent sans cesse et les potentiels nucleaires sont capables de detruire le monde d'une fagon quasi hasardeuse, peu de themes semblent plus urgents que celui de la paix. En meme temps nous vivons une epoque apres le totalitarisme ou - comme dans le bloc sovietique - le mot « la paix » a adopte un sens funeste et non pas pacifique du tout. Pour les habitants de l'Europe de l'Est la notion du «congres (...) de la paix» faisait appel aux pires connotations. Elle recouvrait le plus souvent les machinations de la propagande dont le but etait de convaincre le reste du monde que l'etat sovietique aimait la paix et de par son essence ne menagait pas l'univers, ceux qui le menagaient par contre c'etaient les etats capitalistes qu'il fallait combattre jusqu'au bout. D'ou cette formule remarquable, caracteristique des pays communistes : la « lutte pour la paix ». (shrink)

Dans ce monde ou les conflits armes eclatent sans cesse et les potentiels nucleaires sont capables de detruire le monde d'une fagon quasi hasardeuse, peu de themes semblent plus urgents que celui de la paix. En meme temps nous vivons une epoque apres le totalitarisme ou - comme dans le bloc sovietique - le mot « la paix » a adopte un sens funeste et non pas pacifique du tout. Pour les habitants de l'Europe de l'Est la notion du «congres (...) de la paix» faisait appel aux pires connotations. Elle recouvrait le plus souvent les machinations de la propagande dont le but etait de convaincre le reste du monde que l'etat sovietique aimait la paix et de par son essence ne menagait pas l'univers, ceux qui le menagaient par contre c'etaient les etats capitalistes qu'il fallait combattre jusqu'au bout. D'ou cette formule remarquable, caracteristique des pays communistes : la « lutte pour la paix ». (shrink)

The author presents Leszek Kołakowski from the perspective of his private acquaintanceship, lasting for about 47 years, as a witty man and a workaholic. L. Kołakowski never formed a classic “school”, but there is something all his disciples share: a thesis, key to understanding his ideas, which holds that “THERE IS MORE THAN ONE CORRECT OPINION IN THE HUMANITIES”, i.e. we will ALWAYS have opinions for and against, which goes against any dogmatism, wherever it may appear; this also bears consequences (...) in diagnosing the socio-political reality past and present. (shrink)

John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio reiterates in a new and fresh way the harmony of faith and reason. The dominant tradition of Catholic thought isone that sees this harmony, but the tradition is not uncritical. Throughout the history of the Church, there have been thinkers wary of reason. The thoughtof Karol Wojtyla, both before and during his papacy, has looked to a focus on the human person as a way to reconcile faith and reason.

Doubtless that which strongly links Karol Wojtyła’s Laborem exercens encyclical with Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 is not so much philosophy of work as the personalistic anti-feudalism that is equally alive in both works. The personalistic trait, in Marxism merely an (unpursued) option mentioned in the Manuscripts, was taken further—philosophically, and not just ethically—in Laborem exercens, where the person becomes an ontological category (in light both of the transcendent existence of a tri-personal God and the transcendence (...) of the communities created by human beings, who are only able to live in communities). Also, the person acquired an ontological-social dimension by determining the boundaries of humanity’s co-creative (also in the world-creating sense) communion with God as the ideal of community-based material and social existence. And this is also the guiding perspective of my initial analysis of the personalization process underway in Polish society and the post-Vatican-II Church. Both are gradually—if not without some difficulty—learning to part with the non-personalistic models characteristic for the previous, still considerably feudalism-influenced era, which manifested themselves as much in the institutionalismof official Marxism as the socially (not religiously!) motivated doctrines of the Church. (shrink)

The ArgumentCassirer's analyses of twentieth-century physics from the perspective of the philosophy of science focuses on the concept of the object of scientific experience. Within his concept of functional knowledge, he takes a structural stance and claims that it is specifically this concept of the object that has paved the way for modern science. This article aims, first, to show that Cassirer's interpretation of Felix Klein's “Erlanger Programm” provided the impetus for this view. Then, it analyzes Kant's conception of objectivity (...) in order to examine whether Cassirer can rightfully claim that his view is a further development of transcendental principles. Finally, it is argued that it is Cassirer's concept of the object that enables him to integrate one decisive feature of scientific progress, namely, the increasinggeneralizationof the basic concepts of a science, into his conception of knowledge. This is illustrated in more detail through the example of the progression from Newton's mechanics to relativity theory. (shrink)

L’autodeterminazione è una categoria fondamentale nella visione personalistica di K. Wojtyła. Essa è una relazione entro la volontà. Una relazione di cui si potrebbe dire: la volontà si rivela come proprietà della persona e la persona come realtà che, riguardo al suo dinamismo, è constituita propriamente dalla volontà. L’autodeterminazione non è un atto chiuso entro se stesso, preché essenziale è il momento della verità e nella verità.

II concetto della persona umana secondo Karol Wojtyła si deve vedere sullo sfondo della moderna antropologia filosofica, la cui nota caratteristica e di considerare l'uomo come unita corporale-spirituale, contrariamente alla concezione tradizionale - come essere composto di anima e di corpo. Da questo risulta che l'accento si sposta dalle concezioni dualistiche dell'uomo alle concezioni unitarie. In questa concezione non si livella la differenza tra l'anima e il corpo, ma solo si presenta in altro modo il rapporto tra loro.

II concetto della persona umana secondo Karol Wojtyła si deve vedere sullo sfondo della moderna antropologia filosofica, la cui nota caratteristica e di considerare l'uomo come unita corporale-spirituale, contrariamente alla concezione tradizionale - come essere composto di anima e di corpo. Da questo risulta che l'accento si sposta dalle concezioni dualistiche dell'uomo alle concezioni unitarie. In questa concezione non si livella la differenza tra l'anima e il corpo, ma solo si presenta in altro modo il rapporto tra loro.

There are aspects of privacy theory that are analogous to quantum theory. In particular one can define distillable key and key cost in parallel to distillable entanglement and entanglement cost. We present here classical privacy theory as a particular case of information theory with adversaries, where similar general laws hold as in entanglement theory. We place the result of Renner and Wolf—that intrinsic information is lower bound for key cost—into this general formalism. Then we show that the question of whether (...) intrinsic information is equal to key cost is equivalent to the question of whether Alice and Bob can create a distribution product with Eve using I M bits of secret key. We also propose a natural analogue of relative entropy of entanglement in privacy theory and show that it is equal to the intrinsic information. We also provide a formula analogous to the entanglement of formation for classical distributions. (shrink)

According to grounding necessitarianism if some facts ground another fact, then the obtaining of the former necessitates the latter. Proponents of grounding contingentism argue against this claim, stating that it is possible for the former facts to obtain without necessitating the latter. In this article I discuss a recent argument from restricted accidental generalisations provided by contingentists that advances such possibility. I argue that grounding necessitarianism can be defended against it. To achieve this aim, I postulate a relationship between grounding (...) and essence by introducing a notion of individual essences understood as a set of essential properties that individuate its bearer. According to a proposed view grounding holds in virtue of identities of its relata, which are in turn determined by their respective individual essences. From there I claim that if grounding holds in virtue of the individual essences of its relata, then it is possible to resist the objection from restricted accidental generalisations and maintain a view that grounds necessitates what is grounded. (shrink)

_Beyond Reason_ relates Wagner’s works to the philosophical and cultural ideas of his time, centering on the four music dramas he created in the second half of his career:_ Der Ring des Nibelungen_, _Tristan und Isolde_, _Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg_, and _Parsifal_. Karol Berger seeks to penetrate the “secret” of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas and to answer those critics, most prominently Nietzsche, who condemned Wagner for his putative inability to weld small expressive gestures into larger wholes. Organized (...) by individual opera, this is essential reading for both musicologists and Wagner experts. (shrink)

This article identifies the contemporary criteria of imperiality and then considers the normative aspects of the existence of certain great powers (empires) in international relations. It is argued that there is a body of norms valid among empires that may be referred to as interimperial law, in the sense of a normative order that is intended to lower the costs and dangers of competition between empires. The article outlines a basic theory of coexistence between the emerging interimperial law and the (...) existing international law, derived from theoretical and historical models of the coexistence of various legal orders within one territory. (shrink)

What, if anything, has art to do with the rest of our lives, and in particular with those ethical and political issues that matter to us most? Will art created today be likely to play a role in our lives as profound as that of the best art of the past? A Theory of Art shifts the focus of aesthetics from the traditional debate of "what is art?" to the engaging question of "what is art for?" Skillfully describing the social (...) and historical situation of art today, author Karol Berger argues that music exemplifies the current condition of art in a radical, acute, and revealing fashion. He also uniquely combines aesthetics with poetics and hermeneutics. Offering a careful synthesis of a wide breadth of scholarship from art history, musicology, literary studies, political philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics, and written in a clear, accessible style, this book will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in the arts. (shrink)

This book encourages a debate over musical modernity; a debate considering the question whether an examination of the history of European art music may enrich our picture of modernity and whether our understanding of music's development may be transformed by insights into the nature of modernity provided by other historical disciplines.

In Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems, leading figures in the fields of virtue ethics and ethics come together to present the first ...

Since its original identification as a component of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) complex, K protein has been found not only in the nucleus but also in the cytoplasm and mitochondria and is implicated in chromatin remodeling, transcription, splicing and translation processes. K protein contains multiple modules that, on one hand, bind kinases while, on the other hand, recruit chromatin, transcription, splicing and translation factors. Moreover, the K‐ protein‐mediated interactions are regulated by signaling cascades. These observations are consistent with K (...) protein acting as a docking platform to integrate signaling cascades by facilitating cross‐talk between kinases and factors that mediate nucleic‐acid‐directed processes. Comparison of K across species reveals that it is an essential factor in metazoans, but not in yeast. Although some of the K protein interactions and functions are conserved in eukaryotes from yeast to man, the mammalian protein seems to play a wider role. The greater diversity of mammalian K protein interactions and function may reflect gain of novel docking sites and expansion evolutionary of gene expression networks. BioEssays 26:629–638, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Financial misconduct has come into the spotlight in recent years, causing market regulators to increase the reach and severity of interventions. We show that at times the economic benefits of illicit financial activity outweigh the costs of litigation. We illustrate our argument with data from the US Securities and Exchanges Commission and a case of investment misconduct. From the neoclassical economic paradigm, which follows utilitarian thinking, it is rational to engage in misconduct. Still, the majority of professionals refrain from misconduct, (...) foregoing economic rewards. We suggest financial activity could be reimagined taking into account intrinsic and prosocial motivations. A virtue ethics framework could also be applied, linking financial behavior to the quest for moral excellence and shared flourishing. By going beyond utilitarian thinking and considering alternative models, we offer a fuller account of financial behavior and a better perspective from which to design deterrence methods. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss a connection between quidditism and the Lewisian principle of recombination. I begin by reconstructing a typical characterisation of a Lewisian principle of recombination, followed by an explanation of quidditism. In the remainder, I argue that a proponent of a Lewisian principle of recombination cannot endorse quidditism without some important modifications of her view.

The main result of the paper states that there is a finitely presented group _G_ with decidable word problem where detection of finite subsets of _G_ which generate amenable subgroups is not decidable.

In the paper a thesis is stated that institutional economics presents considerable support for business ethics teaching. The assumptions of main-stream economics eliminated the problems of morality in economic life. The dominance of neo-classical economics in economic studies curricula contributes to the social opinion that business is deprived of moral dimensions. From this point of view, it is argued that business ethicists should be more interested in institutional economics. Some institutionalists see economics close to social moral philosophy and claim that (...) a normative approach in economics is natural and necessary. The questions of aims and economic morality are integral parts of many institutional research agendas. Especially the New Institutional Economics has developed tools that enable formalization and empirical verification of theories of morality in business. Institutional economics enriches the theoretical and empirical context of business ethics teaching. (shrink)

One of the main goals of contemporary media, along with the experts and professionals, who speak in them, has been to explain complex issues and provide the audience with clear descriptions of social reality. This is mostly achieved by the production of ideologically useful interpretative schemes that facilitate understanding of the issues present on the media agenda. An important strategy of shaping the public opinion in the way in which public affairs and the activity of social life participants is framed. (...) Analyses of such practices have been conducted for over thirty years within various research approaches collectively referred to as framing analysis. This research provides several arguments helping one to develop a more critical perspective on the representations of social phenomena dominant in the media and discourses of symbolic elites (e.g. opinion writers, academics, experts, journalists, politicians), along with the analyses of the origin of such phenomena, moral judgements and preferred "corrective policies". One of the phenomena defined by the media in Europe as the most important one for the past several years, is the so-called "New Right". The aim of the paper is to analyse the interpretative schemes used by the journalists of four Polish opinion-forming weeklies and to describe the activity of its German manifestation – the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (Pegida) social movement and the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). (shrink)

The idea of fundamentalism is repeatedly present in mass media and often occupies the center of religious and political discussions. There are some sociological conditions of fundamentalism and different applications of the term in mass media. The psychological research tries to explain the phenomenon as well. The philosophical analysis put the question of the nature of fundamentalism. The following text tries to give an answer to such a question. The fundamentalism seems to be no traditional, but inherently a modern movement (...) that it´s religious convictions puts absolutely through, mainly in politics. (shrink)