This article addresses the issue of asking questions as an important element of international business negotiation where there are differences in cultural background. A Dutch-Spanish difference in questioning was related to differences between the two parties in uncertainty reduction and negotiation goals. All 480 questions in 8 simulated Kelley game negotiations were reviewed: both monocultural and intercultural, i.e. 2 cultures and 3 languages. This analysis may also allow an illustration of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis which holds, at least in its weak (...) version, that culture frames language and language frames culture. It may also be possible to determine the extent to which intercultural differences between Dutch and Spanish questioning behaviours - assuming they can be ascertained in comparison with monocultural Dutch and Spanish behaviour - are language bound. In other words, do negotiators use a different typology of questions in their native language than in a neutral language? A comparison of the monocultural and intercultural data makes it possible to illustrate the above hypothesis, and to establish how far the L1-culture connection differs from that of the L2-culture. For another similar test on culture-language relations in South African mathematics texts and their readers, see Prins and Ulijn. The uncertainty reduction theory of Berger and the negotiation models developed by Fisher and Ury and Mastenbroek are related to question behaviour, which is analysed with the Verbal Response Mode Taxonomy of Stiles. Pre- and post-negotiation questionnaires were developed and administered to relate the results of the linguistic analysis to the perceptions of the negotiators in order to test the ecological validity of UR. Asking questions appeared to be a critical success factor in both monocultural and intercultural business negotiation on the basis of their relation with UR variables and Kelley game profit levels, but in a different sense to Gudykunst et al., who suggest that questions reduce uncertainty by increasing attributional confidence in a general way, seemingly irrespective of a national cultural background. In this study the Dutch, starting from a higher level of issue-related global confidence, used questions significantly less than the Spanish to attribute confidence to the person, indicating a cultural difference. Most questioning differences appeared to be language - as well as culture-bound. The Spanish asked significantly more for acknowledgement, and the Dutch asked more indirect questions with disclosure, but the two groups did not differ in global uncertainty and attributional confidence after their negotiations. They seemed to reduce uncertainty by adopting a passive, unobtrusive observation strategy. It may be that the type of information needed to become more confident depends on the communicator's personality rather than on his or her cultural background. Dutch and Spanish managers would therefore be advised to balance openness and vagueness to reach their negotiation goals in maximizing profits by using a combination of clear and ambiguous questions and answers and to be aware of the linguistic differences in questioning between Spanish and Dutch, which may even be carried over to English when it is used as a tool of communication. (shrink)

This article considers how legislators should respond to evidence that identifies a common and widely accepted parental practice as a potential source of harm to children, using domestic exposure to environmental tobacco smoke as a test case. It is claimed that children are parties to the Harm Principle, and that the State has an obligation to protect children from exposure to harm. Parental prerogative is limited by the need to avoid harming children. That said, there is considerable uncertainty about what (...) is harmful to children. Several sources of uncertainty, both empirical and conceptual, are explored, in order to demonstrate the complexity of the task legislators face. Seven considerations that are relevant to decisions about legislation of harmful parental practices are outlined, and these considerations are then employed to assess the case in favour of legislating to prohibit the exposure of children to environmental tobacco smoke in domestic settings. (shrink)

Summary The Copernican system was condemned as heretical by a decree of the Roman Inquisition in 1633. This decree was effectively, though not officially, withdrawn in 1757, after which date Catholic astronomers felt themselves free to accept and propagate the system without reserve. Between these dates their attitudes varied greatly. In France the decree was never promulgated and was legally unenforceable. Astronomers could be Copernican without any fear of consequences and most of them were, though some, out of respect for (...) the Church, refrained from declaring themselves publicly. In Italy the possible risks were greater, but a few Copernican or near-Copernican works were published without hostile reactions. The ecclesiastical authorities were tolerant and made little positive effort to enforce conformity. By 1744, the system was being freely propagated in Rome itself. (shrink)

Augustine of Hippo's The City of God is generally considered to be one of the key works of Late Antiquity. Written in response to allegations that Christianity had brought about the decline of Rome, Augustine here explores themes in history, political science, and Christian theology, and argues for the truth of Christianity over competing religions and philosophies. This Companion volume includes specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars that provide new insights into The City of God. Offering commentary on (...) each of this massive work's 22 books chapters, they sequentially and systematically explore The City of God as a whole. Collectively, these essays demonstrate the development and coherence of Augustine's argument. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of ancient and contemporary theology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political theory. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern in (...) a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. (shrink)

En física, el infinito aparece vinculado al problema de lo continuo de las representaciones matemáticas usadas por las diversas teorías y, por lo tanto, a la posibilidad de la infinita divisibilidad y de la infinita extensión de la geometría del espaciotiempo y de los conceptos y magnitudes físicas mensurables. El modelo estándar de las partículas considera que las partículas elementales son «infinitamente» pequeñas, donde surgen cálculos con resultados infinitos para determinadas cantidades físicas y, para eliminarlos, se utilizan métodos de renormalización, (...) usados también en la cosmología clásica y en el modelo estándar cosmológico del Big Bang con la finalidad de domesticar los infinitos. La investigación en gravedad cuántica considera que el espacio no sea infinitamente divisible y los modelos de multiversos suponen tiempos y espacios infinitos para el Universo. Siendo nuestras teorías siempre limitadas y perfectibles, parece que no podemos probar, en física, que el Universo sea físicamente infinito. (shrink)

Tacitus opens the Annals with a succinct sketch of the constitutional history of Rome from the kings to Augustus (1.1.1). The common interpretation holds that Tacitus adopts a cyclical view of this history which identifies the supremacy of Augustus with kingship, and chooses his vocabulary of power primarily with stylistic variation in mind. The terms employed, princeps and imperium, are also held to announce a major interpretative preoccupation of the Annals, the gap between the ‘appearance’ and the ‘reality’ of power (...) under the principate. This essay will demonstrate that these interpretations of the structure and language of the preface are misleading. Tacitus offers a sequential view of Roman constitutional history that casts Augustus as a pivot between the tradition stretching back to the foundation of the city and a new phase which he identifies in its own terms, not as a reversion to kingship. The introduction of the motif of ‘appearance v. reality’ comes not with the language of princeps and imperium, but at 1.2.1. An appendix analyses the use of the term principatus in Velleius Paterculus and Tacitus. (shrink)

There are good reasons for envisioning a global discourse about God, premised necessarily agreed upon perfections considered to be by definition proper to God, and for thinking through the implications of our understanding of God for morality. Philosophically, it makes sense to hold that claims about omnipotence, omniscience, and other superlative perfections are indeed maximal, and define “God” wherever the terminology of divine persons is taken up. Religiously too, it makes sense to assert that a deity possessed of perfections is (...) not just the deity of one’s own tribe or religion, but also the deity of the whole world, whether acknowledged as such or not. This essay delves into the larger set of rich complexities by three moves. First, I look into a single extended historical case of the extension of the discourse about God beyond the Christian West, the discourse on God proffered by Western Jesuit missionaries in India from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Second, I place next to that Jesuit learning the instance of a famed Hindu theologian’s discourse on God, God’s perfections, and their moral implications. Third, I briefly step back and assess the dangers and fruitful prospects inherent in thinking about God and morality in an interreligious context. (shrink)