Village communities are not homogeneous entities but a combination of complex networks of social relationships. Many factors such as ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, and power relations determine one’s access to information and resources. Development workers’ inadequate understanding of local social networks, norms, and power relations may further the interests of better-off farmers and marginalize the poor. This paper explores how social networks function as assets for individuals and households in the rural areas of developing countries and influence access to information (...) and benefits from research and development. A case study of such networks in Phieng Lieng village, in the northern mountains of Vietnam, provides evidence for the need for the efficient delivery of extension services and research and development interventions at the micro level. (shrink)

v. 1. 1955-1960.--v. 2. 1960-1964.--v. 3. March-November 1964.--v. 4. November 26, 1964-September 2, 1965.--v. 5. September 3, 1965-August 27, 1968.--v. 6. August 28, 1968-May 22, 1971.--v. 7. April 13, 1975-June 21, 1976.--v. 7, pt. 2. September 17, 1977-February 26, 1978.--v. 8. April 28, 1978-July 28, 1980 -- v. 9. August 16, 1980-March 15, 1984 -- v. 11. January 19, 1986-May 27, 1987.

The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.

Religion, which is a historical and cultural phenomenon of social life, has a special influence on the development of the spiritual culture of mankind. It arose and developed together with society, created in it the appropriate forms of consciousness and ideological culture. The emergence and functioning of religious views, ideas, ideas and ideals - a phenomenon of objective reality, the fact of history and culture. Becoming a status of cultural values, religion continues to affect the consciousness and behavior of people.

This self-contained treatise, originally published in 1947 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, examines fundamental features of nature in order to lay the groundwork for providing a solution to the major problems of ethics.

Zusammenfassungen der Referate in französischer Sprache.

In the first part of this paper some general theses concerning the difference between logic and mathematics are defended. In the second part four different views for a possible demarcation between logic and mathematics are stated.

An agent often does not have precise probabilities or utilities to guide resolution of a decision problem. I advance a principle of rationality for making decisions in such cases. To begin, I represent the doxastic and conative state of an agent with a set of pairs of a probability assignment and a utility assignment. Then I support a decision principle that allows any act that maximizes expected utility according to some pair of assignments in the set. Assuming that computation of (...) an option's expected utility uses comprehensive possible outcomes that include the option's risk, no consideration supports a stricter requirement. (shrink)

Schelling und Hegel benutzen in ihren philosophischen Texten mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Modelle wie Unendlichkeit oder Gleichgewicht. Die Strukturen dieser Begriffe liefern einen Massstab fur den Vergleich der Positionen Schellings und Hegels, der fur Schellings Identitatsphilosophie und Hegels erste Jenaer Schriften durchgefuhrt wird. Als wichtigstes Resultat kann eine grundlegende Differenz zwischen beiden Positionen bereits um 1801 nachgewiesen und gezeigt werden, dass diese auf einer unterschiedlichen Auffassung der Rolle des Absoluten beruht.

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und (...) Literaturwissenschaften sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

The first book-length study of a leading tenth-century Ismaili theoretician Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani.

The present article shows that there are consistent and decidable manyvalued systems of propositional logic which satisfy two or all the three criteria for non-trivial inconsistent theories by da Costa . The weaker one of these paraconsistent system is also able to avoid a series of paradoxes which come up when classical logic is applied to empirical sciences. These paraconsistent systems are based on a 6-valued system of propositional logic for avoiding difficulties in several domains of empirical science ).

The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China. It arises out of the University of Bristol's Centre for Buddhist Studies research project Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China, funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities (...) Research Council. This project involved extensive new research in Thailand, Laos and China. Other items from that project included several public exhibitions, extensive stills photographs, and several video films. The project-team produced two 30 minutes films on the ghost festival in Laos and China, one on urban funerals in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and several shorter clips dealing with funeral cultures in Laos, Thailand and China. Most of this material (and an extensive bibliography on the topic) is available free of charge from the project website located at the webpage of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies (Centre for Buddhist Studies) at the University of Bristol. (shrink)

This article contends that the evolution toward interdisciplinary collaboration that we are witnessing in the sciences must also occur in the humanities to ensure their very survival. That is, humanists must be open to working with scientists and social scientists interested in similar research questions and vice versa. Digital humanities is a positive first step. Complexity science should be the next step. Even though much of the ground-breaking work in complexity science has been done in the natural sciences and mathematics, (...) it can, if critically adapted, provide the needed metaphor for a broad integration of disciplines, humanistic and otherwise. Given its almost a-disciplinary nature, a complexity approach to the research problems in the humanities necessarily breaks down silos. Moreover, it can restore and reframe the seamless intellectual fabric sought by researchers before the atomization of the various disciplines in the nineteenthcentury academy. (shrink)

This paper analyses the problem of shame in the thinking of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The authors examine this problem primarily in two contexts. The first, social meaning, understands shame as an emotion that appears during a conflict between a person’s “self” and social norms. Seneca mainly tackles this question concerning providing “benefits” (beneficia) in his On Benefits and eighty-first letter of Moral Epistles. The second therapeutic and didactic meaning utilises shame as an instrument to manage some illnesses of the mind (...) (for example, anger). Moreover, to educate a “Stoic disciple” (proficiens), deliberate exposure to shame in public marks one of the important techniques to near the perfect ideal of “the wise man” (sapiens) and to prepare oneself for service in public office. Especially in Moral Epistles, we find a detailed description of this didactic approach and the limiting factors to using this technique. (shrink)

The paper deals with the issue of tying (as well as bundling) practices which are applied by dominant undertakings and which, under certain circumstances, can be considered as abuses of a dominant position. The authors describe the concept of tying, indicate its types, and reveal its economic aspects, since all these issues have a certain impact on the legal assessment of tying practices. The authors conclude that the European Commission (the Commission) and the European Community (EC) courts have usually been (...) too formalistic and unreasonably hostile to tying practices and have not paid due attention to the impact of tying on competition and the beneficial features of tying. Thus certain cases have frequently and rather easily been treated as abuses of a dominant position. A more realistic and effect-based approach was taken by the Commission and the courts in the Microsoft case, where certain criteria for the assessment of tying were formulated. Still, the Microsoft case reflects a rather strict attitude towards tying practices, especially in technological tie-ins. (shrink)

Predatory pricing is one of the forms of the abuse of a dominant position. Judicial institutions of the European Union and Commission during analysis of predatory pricing devote main attention to the relationship between costs and prices of the dominant undertaking. Moreover, attention is paid also to various cost benchmarks: average variable costs, average avoidable costs, average total costs and long run average incremental costs. European judicial institutions should pay less attention to the costs of a dominant undertaking than to (...) evaluation of the effect of the actions of a dominant undertaking to consumers and competition in the market. Moreover, proposition of the Commission to use average avoidable costs in predation cases does not correspond to the practice of the Court of Justice and the General Court. The Commission should stipulate more clearly how average avoidable costs and long-run average incremental costs should be calculated in order to increase legal certainty of the undertakings. Establishment of prices higher than average total costs by the dominant undertaking should not be recognized as predatory pricing. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse different goals of the competition law, which are established in European Union and Lithuania. EU Commission and the Court of Justice distinguish a number of goals of the competition law. Most commonly, mentioned goals of competition law are the following: the integration of the Internal Market, the protection of consumers, protection of the competitors, freedom of competition and economic efficiency. Different goals of competition law are analysed in this paper and relationship between (...) them is explained. Special attention is given to the analysis of protection of the consumers as one of the main objectives of competition law. While analysing protection of the consumers in competition law, a difference between the concept of consumer in competition law and consumer protection law is explained. The authors express a number of critical thoughts towards practice of the EU Commission and the Court of Justice so far, as there is a lack of consistency in evaluation of the protection of consumers’ rights in the context of the other objectives of competition law. Relevance of the present article is supported by the several facts such as revision of the competition law goals by the EU Commission and adoption of resolution “Concerning priority of the activities of the Lithuanian Competition Council” by the Lithuanian Competition Council that establishes main principles (priorities) applied while implementing competition policy in Lithuania. Setting out the main goals in Lithuanian competition law may have important practical consequences in the everyday activities of the Lithuanian national competition authority. (shrink)

Extends the ideas of social constructivism to the philosophy of mathematics, developing a powerful critique of traditional absolutist conceptions of mathematics, and proposing a reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics.

The immediate aim of this paper is to articulate the essential features of an alternative compatibilist position, one that is responsive to sources of resistance to the compatibilist program based on considerations of fate and luck. The approach taken relies on distinguishing carefully between issues of skepticism and pessimism as they arise in this context. A compatibilism that is properly responsive to concerns about fate and luck is committed to what I describe as free will pessimism, which is to be (...) distinguished from free will skepticism. Free will skepticism is the view that our vulnerability to conditions of fate and luck serve to discredit our view of ourselves as free and responsible agents. Free will pessimism rejects free will scepticism, since the basis of its pessimism rests with the assumption that we are free and responsible agents who are, nevertheless, subject to fate and luck in this aspect of our lives. According to free will pessimism, all the major parties and positions in the free will debate, including that of skepticism, are modes of evasion and distortion regarding our human predicament in respect of agency and moral life. (shrink)

Imposition of sanctions for violations of competition law rules is an important instrument of the European Union (EU) and Lithuanian competition enforcement authorities and is an inevitable part of the EU and Lithuanian competition law policy. The fining policy of the Lithuanian Competition Council for breaches of the Lithuanian and EU competition rules has recently been changed by the new 2012 Government resolution and has been aligned with the 2006 Commission Guidelines on the method of setting fines. The new Lithuanian (...) fining rules set exactly the same basic principles for setting the amount of fines and are very similar to the Commission’s Guidelines, however some peculiarities may and shall be distinguished. The new Lithuanian fining rules in some aspects are even stricter than the EU fining rules established in the Commission’s Guidelines. The aim of the article is to analyse the main changes in the Competition Council’s fining policy and identify the discrepancies in national and EU fining rules, analyse advantages and disadvantages of the new fining policy. (shrink)