Today, the earth is an interconnected globe humming with electronic transmissions-a chattering planet nestled in the provident silence of space. The ethical question is whether this is contributing to authentic human development and helping individuals and peoples to be true to their transcendent destiny. The new media are powerful tools for education, cultural enrichment, commercial activity, political participation, intercultural dialogue and understanding. They also can serve the cause of religion. Yet the new information technology needs to be informed and (...) guided by solidarity in the service of the common good bridging the digital divide within and among nations. The value-laden message of Western secular culture to people and traditional societies in many cases ill-prepared to evaluate it leads to widespread crisis, for example, in regard to marriage and family life. This technology can be a means for solving human problems, promoting the integral development of persons, creating a world governed by justice, peace, and love. It also can help men and women in their age-old search for self-understanding. Like today's world itself, the world of media, including the Internet, has been brought by Christ, inchoately yet truly, within the boundaries of the kingdom of God and placed in service to the word of salvation. (shrink)

The central question of this conference is whether the media can contribute to high quality social dialogue. The prospects for resolving that question positively in the “sound and fury” depend on recovering the idea of truth. At present the news media are lurching along from one crisis to another with an empty centre. We need to articulate a believable concept of truth as communication's master principle. As the norm of healing is to medicine, justice to politics, critical thinking (...) to education, craftsmanship to engineering, and stewardship to business, so truth-telling is the news profession's occupational norm. Truth-telling is the ethical framework that fundamentally reorders the media's professional culture and enables them to enrich social dialogue rather than undermine it.Historically the mainstream press has defined itself in terms of an objectivist worldview. Centred on human rationality and armed with the scientific method, the facts in news have been said to mirror reality. The aim has been true and incontrovertible accounts of a domain separate from human consciousness. In Bertrand Russell's formula, “truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief and fact” . In the received view, truth is defined in elementary epistemological terms as accurate representation. News corresponds to context-free neutral algorithms, and ethics is equated with impartiality.The attacks on this misguided view of human knowledge had already originated in Giambattista Vico's fantasia and Wilhelm Dilthey's verstehen in the counter-Enlightenment of the 18th century. They have continued with hermeneutics, critical theory in the Frankfurt School, American pragmatism, Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy, Gramsci, and in their own way, Lyotard's denial of master narratives and Derrida's sliding signifiers; until the anti-foundationalism of our own day indicates a crisis in correspondence views of truth. Institutional structures remain Enlightenment-driven, but in principle the tide has turned currently toward restricting objectivism to the territory of mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. In reporting, objectivity has become increasingly controversial as the working press' professional standard, though it will remain entrenched in our ordinary practices of news production and dissemination until an alternative mission for the press is convincingly formulated.The demise of correspondence views of truth has created a predicament for the notion of truth altogether. However, instead of appealing to coherence versions or abandoning the concept, truth needs to be relocated in the moral sphere. Truth is a problem of axiology rather than epistemology. With the dominant scheme no longer tenable, truth should become the province of ethicists who can reconstruct it as the news media's contribution to social dialogue.When truth is articulated in terms of a moral framework, we can mold its richly textured meaning around the Hebrew emeth , the Greek aletheia . In Serbo-Croatian the true is justified as with plumbline in carpentry. In the powerful wheel imagery of the Buddhist tradition, truth is the immovable axle. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa presumes that sufferings from apartheid can be healed through truthful testimony. In Ghandhi's “satyagrapha,” the power of truth through the human spirit eventually wins over force . Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics contends correctly that a truthful account lays hold of the context, motives, and presuppositions involved .Telling the truth depends on the quality of discernment so that penultimates do not gain ultimacy. Truth means, in other words, to strike gold, to get at “the core, the essence, the nub, the heart of the matter” . For Henry David Thoreau – though addressing a different issue – when we are truthful, we attempt to “drive life into a corner and¼if it proves to be mean, why then to get the genuine meanness out of it and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by personal experience and be able to give a true account of the encounter” . For the former secretary general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, “the most dangerous of all moral dilemmas is when we are obliged to conceal truth in order to help the truth be victorious” . In the Talmud, the liar's punishment is that no one believes him.Augustine , professor of rhetoric at Milan and later Bishop of Hippo, illustrates a non-correspondence view of truth. His rhetorical theory is a major contribution to the philosophy of communication, contradicting the highly secular and linear view of the ancient Greeks. As with Aristotle, rhetoric entails reasoned judgement for Augustine; however, he “break[s] away from Graeco-Roman rhetoric, moving instead toward ¼rhetoric as aletheiac act” . Rhetoric for him is not knowledge-producing or opinion-producing but truth-producing . The Epistolae Doctrina Christiana scourges the value-neutral, technical language of “word merchants” without wisdom.Truth is not fundamentally a prescriptive statement. The aletheiac act in Augustine “tends to be more relational than propositional, a dialogically interpersonal, sacramentally charitable act rather than a statement¼taking into account and being motivated by [the cardinal virtues] faith, hope, and charity” . The truth for him does not merely make things clear, but motivates us to belief and action. In truthful communication for Augustine, “it is not enough to seek to move men's minds, merely for the sake of power; instead, the power to move is to be used to lead men to truth”. (shrink)

Foucault and Social Dialogue; Beyond Fragmentation is a compelling yet extremely clear investigation of these options and offers a new way forward. Christopher Falzon argues that the proper alternative to foundationalism is not fragmentation but dialogue and that such a dialogical picture can be found in the work of Michel Foucault. Such a reading of Foucault allows us to see, for the first time, the ethical and political position implicit in Foucault's work and how his work contributes (...) to the larger debate concerning the death of man. (shrink)

Given his heralding of the "death of Man" or the "death of the subject", Michel Foucault's work is thought by many to be too fragmentary and anti-foundationalist to be much use for building any sort of ethical or political theory. Chris Falzon challenges this position, arguing that the proper alternative to foundationalism is not fragmentation but dialogue and that concept can be found in Foucault's work. Such a reading of Foucault allows us to see the ethical and political position (...) implicit his work, and how his work contributes to the larger debate concerning the death of Man. This book also presents a rethinking of the debates between Habermas and Foucault and shows how Foucault's work can be used to effectively challenge Habermas' position. Foucault and Social Dialogue provides a compelling reinterpretation of Foucault's legacy. (shrink)

The paper is focused upon the relations of key inside stakeholders—managers and employees whose interests are supposed to be represented by trade unions while shaping internal CSR practices. It discusses real, perceived and desired role of TU in the process and the outcomes of internal CSR in the fields of work related security and access to social benefits. It is demonstrated that the internal social policy of corporate management pursues pragmatic goals seeking the least costly way to compete (...) for skilled manpower and accumulate human capital. The role of TU is chiefly limited to assisting the management in distribution of social benefits. As a result the benefit distribution contributes to social inequality patterns inside corporation. It is safe to conclude that so far the internal CSR patterns in Russia are formed under a mixture of pragmatic and paternalistic reasons with minor traces of social dialogue. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present in a summarized form a new approach to the ethical analysis of economic policies and to illustrate its importance with a reference to recent experiences of social dialogue in Costa Rica.A general view of the Latin American scenario is presented, with the belief that some of the main problems there observed call for a type of analysis like the one here proposed. In the second place, a brief characterization of this (...) new ethical analysis is included. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present in a summarized form a new approach to the ethical analysis of economic policies and to illustrate its importance with a reference to recent experiences of social dialogue in Costa Rica. A general view of the Latin American scenario is presented, with the belief that some of the main problems there observed call for a type of analysis like the one here proposed. In the second place, a brief characterization of (...) this new ethical analysis is included. Democracy suffers from the existence of asymmetries in social and economic relationships, insofar as the success of political democracy cannot be neither understood nor built up independently from economic democracy. The strengthening of democratic processes in Latin America requires a better understanding and consolidation of the relationship between political democracy and economic democracy. On the other hand, present orientation of globalization makes of the international environment an obstacle to realize democracy at a national level. Hence, two focus of interest arise for the ethical analysis of economics at the macroeconomic level: the study of the ethical conditions of participation for each country in the globalization process, and the realization of an economic democracy within each particular country. After identifying both lines of reflection, this article summarizes the theoretical basis of a proposal for the ethical analysis of economic policy making. This approach attempts to answer the challenges of economic democratization. Centered on the ethical dimension of these processes, and from the point of view of a dialogical ethics, stress is given to those aspects of the process which will guarantee the ethical character of the consequences. This is a methodological approach which tries to discover the ethical values feasible within the economic policies and, at the same time, to go in greater depth in the construction of democratic practices. Rooted in the Latin American regional reality, this academic reflection is just in its beginning and must be considered as complementary to the business ethics analysis already developed in Latin America and Spain. A reference to recent experiences of social dialogue in Costa Rica gives the theoretical presentation a support for the acceptance of its realization in practice. (shrink)

The article substantiates the social nature of the dichotomy of contemporary postmodern society through the analysis of the social content of possible forms of social activity. Using the terminology of S. Deetz’s theory of communication, the authors substantiate that today in Ukrainian society there are three main forms of social activity - consent; involvement; participation. The dominance of a certain form of social dialogue in society determines the nature, dynamics, direction, spatial and temporal (...) class='Hi'>social activity limitations. The results of an empirical study on the distribution of forms of social activity in contemporary Ukrainian society are presented. Emphasis is placed on the fact that one of the conditions for reducing the social destructiveness of postmodern society is the value context of social dialogue as a manifestation of social activity that regulates relations between social groups. In postmodern society, there is a multiplicity of variations of social interaction. The social nature of the constructive social activity of contemporary Ukrainian society “lies” in the plane of “social interaction - social dialogue - social trust”. Effective social interaction between certain social groups leads to the formation of new social relations, that, in turn, form opportunities for social dialogue between them. This dialogue influences the evolution of the structural organization of society, which is a prerequisite for the stability of society, decreasing its potential social destructiveness. (shrink)

International framework agreements represent a new generation of transnational agreements between multinational companies and global trade union federations. This paper analyzes the impact of such an agreement on a successful union organizing campaign in Colombia in 2012. We argue that management strategies towards corporate social responsibility and social dialogue influence the impact of IFAs on worker rights. However, this relationship is mediated by the capacity of managers and worker representatives at multiple levels to mobilize their capabilities. The (...) results highlight the importance of institutionalized dialogue between managers and worker representatives, of the dissemination of capabilities across multilevel coordination structures and, most importantly, of their complementarities at various levels. (shrink)

The pharmaceutical sector, an industry already facing stiff challenges in the form of intensified competition and strategic consolidation, has increasingly become subject to a range of pressures. Crucially, in common with other large-scale businesses, pharmaceutical firms find themselves ‹invited’ to respond positively to the corporate ‹social’ responsibility (CSR) expectations of their stakeholders. Consequently, individual managers will almost certainly be obliged to engage in some form of stakeholder dialogue and this, in turn, means that they will have to make (...) difficult choices about which practices to adopt. This real-world management predicament runs parallel to an academic interest in CSR stakeholder dialogue theory and models. Accordingly, the approach of this paper is to focus primarily on the academic debate surrounding stakeholder dialogue, by reviewing past attempts to research and theorise the subject, by identifying gaps and weaknesses in the literature, and by proposing a new analytical model. The central aim of the proposed new model is to offer a unified, structured, systematic, and comprehensive approach to CSR decision making whilst simultaneously providing a practical framework for CSR executives who face the challenge of responding in an effective manner to stakeholders. The model outlined here is currently being employed to conduct international comparative empirical research into stakeholder dialogue practices amongst UK and German pharmaceutical firms. In the longer term the intention is to use the model to undertake international comparative research encompassing a broader range of countries and industries. (shrink)

The present paper reports a study of conversational acts in dialogical interaction. Conversation in which the use of a vulgar term [à la bieb żobbi] in the Maltese language was used was recorded and analysed for the present purpose. The term is demonstrated to serve social psychological functions. We documented three modes governing its use in conversation, that is, (a) as a personality descriptor, (b) as a strategy for shutting down an alternative view, and (c) as a strategy for (...) shifting dialogue to more neutral and less threatening grounds for the subject. We further document a number of modalities that govern justifications for using the vulgar term in conversation. We argue that the use of vulgarity can serve to achieve semantic barriers in dialogue and that these apply to internal conversations as much as they do to dialogical engagement with another. We further argue that semantic barriers can be overcome in ways that shift conversation to less threatening grounds. (shrink)

There are kinds of dialogue that support social justice and others that do the reverse. The kinds of dialogue that supports social justice requires that anger be bracketed and that hiding in safe spaces be eschewed. All illegitimate ad hominem/ad feminem attacks are ruled out from the get-go. No dialogical contribution can be down-graded on account of the communicator’s gender, race, or religion. As well, this social justice communicative approach unapologetically privileges reason in full view (...) of theories and strategies that might seek to undermine reasoning as just another illegitimate form of power. -/- On the more positive side, we will argue that social justice dialogue will enhanced by a kind of “communicative upgrading” that amplifies “person perception,” foregrounds the impersonal forces within our common social spaces rather than the “baddies” within, and orients the dialogical trajectory toward the future rather than the past. Finally, we will argue that educators have a pressing responsibility to guide their students through social justice dialogue so that their contributions contribute to the amelioration of injustice, rather than rendering the terrain more treacherous. (shrink)

Linguistic interaction between two people is the fundamental form of communication, yet almost all research in language use focuses on isolated speakers and listeners. In this innovative work, Garrod and Pickering extend the scope of psycholinguistics beyond individuals by introducing communication as a social activity. Drawing on psychological, linguistic, philosophical and sociological research, they expand their theory that alignment across individuals is the basis of communication, through the model of a 'shared workspace account'. In this workspace, interlocutors are actors (...) who jointly manipulate and control the interaction and develop similar representations of both language and social context, in order to achieve communicative success. The book also explores dialogue within groups, technologies, as well as the role of culture more generally. Providing a new understanding of cognitive representation, this trailblazing work will be highly influential in the fields of linguistics, psychology and cognitive linguistics. (shrink)

There are kinds of dialogue that support social justice and others that do the reverse. The kinds of dialogue that support social justice require that anger be bracketed and that hiding in safe spaces be eschewed. All illegitimate ad hominem/ad feminem attacks are ruled out from the get-go. No dialogical contribution can be down-graded on account of the communicator’s gender, race, or religion. As well, this communicative approach unapologetically privileges reason in full view of theories and (...) strategies that might seek to undermine reasoning as just another illegitimate form of power. On the more positive side, it is argued in this paper that social justice dialogue will be enhanced by a kind of “communicative upgrading,” which amplifies “person perception,” foregrounds the impersonal forces within our common social spaces rather than the “baddies” within, and orients the dialogical trajectory toward the future rather than the past. Finally, it is argued in this paper that educators have a pressing responsibility to guide their students through social justice dialogue so that their speech contributes to the amelioration of injustice, rather than rendering the terrain more treacherous. (shrink)

By re-examining the writings of Gadamer and Habermas and their views of earlier interpretive theorists, this book offers a radical challenge to their idea of the 'dialogue' between researchers and their subjects.

This paper proposes the concept of digital mirroring to explore and contextualise post-Arab Spring digital feminism in the Levant within a critical discourse framework. Digital mirroring illustrates the way in which contemporary Arab feminist groups articulate their digital presence orienting toward the vertical dimension of their sociopolitical contexts and toward the horizontal dimension characterised by the digital practices of other feminist movements in the region. We observed this phenomenon through the analysis of a multimodal corpus of Facebook and Instagram posts (...) published by thirty-two institutionalised and non-institutionalised feminist groups in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria between 2011 and 2019. The analysis of the linguistic and the visual strategies of MENA feminist groups is grounded in contemporary sociolinguistic studies on Arabic diglossia and multimodality. Findings reveal the complex interplay of digital self-representation, local resistance, and transregional networking of Levantine women. We argue that a simultaneous analysis of the vertical and the horizontal contextual dimensions of digital mirroring is necessary to comprehend social media discursive strategies and their transregional breadth as a central component of contemporary Arab feminism and emancipatory discourses at large. (shrink)

The article explores the relationship between the dialogical way of existence of religion and social stability. The author argues that dialogue is becoming a way of existence of religion in societies with a high level of religious freedom. The author emphasizes constructive types of communication between religions, one of which is traditionally interreligious (interfaith) dialogue. The definition of religious dialogue as a broad communication phenomenon is considered, which, in particular, involves the interaction of not only religions (...) with each other (interreligious, interfaith dialogue), but also communication between religion and society (religious and social dialogue) on important issues of the present, and reactions to them. It is substantiated that the reluctance of a certain religious institution to engage in dialogue may be based on the theological position of the church caused by the phenomenon of «ambivalence of the sacred». Some ways to restore the dialogue of religions and overcome the conflict conditions of their interaction are proposed. In conclusion, it is noted that the «war of civilizations» launched by the Russian Federation in Ukraine brings the dialogue of religions to a new level, namely: requires a revision of certain theological theories, the formation of new theological visions; significantly actualizes the issues of justice, heroism, good and evil, the impossibility of violence, ethical problems and their reflection in theological thought; requires religions to take a civic stance, where it is no longer possible to speak of secularization in the sense of separation of religion from politics; sharpens and problematizes the attitude of religions to the national question as a result of the Russian Federation’s provoked terrorist methods of warfare, and thus the threat to humanity of genocide on a national basis; raises the issue of universal values, the humanistic paradigm and personal responsibility, which brings all religious systems too close together; meta-anthropologizes religion, absolutizes humanism as a value when a believer «goes beyond» mere existence to approach eternal truths, where the concept of «salvation» loses its narrowly individualistic characteristic. (shrink)

This volume explores the potential of employing a relational paradigm for the purposes of interdisciplinary exchange. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, philosophy and theology, it seeks to bridge the gap between subject areas by focusing on real phenomena.Although these phenomena are studied by different disciplines, the editors demonstrate that it is also possible to study them from a common relational perspective that connects the different languages, theories and perspectives which characterize each discipline, by going beyond their differences (...) to the core of reality itself. As an experimental collection that highlights the potential that exists for cross-disciplinary work, this volume will appeal to scholars across a range of field concerned with critical realist approaches to research, collaborative work across subjects and the manner in which disciplines can offer one another new insights. (shrink)

Constant changes in the economic, social and political life of the people of the nations force the Church to enter into a dialogue with the world. The object of her attention is culture, politics, science, dealing with human problems. Church leadership of various Christian denominations sees the possibility of applying their socio-political guides in a wide socio-cultural space - personal and family circles, political and public activities, social life in general.

Bullying has over the years been examined and explained in individual as well as in contextual terms, and from a wide range of different theories and methods. A growing number of bullying researchers approach bullying as a socially complex phenomenon and from social psychological and sociological perspectives. There is today a tension between theoretical perspectives on bullying, but also a need for investigating the social and contextual aspects of bullying further. In this article, I will argue for the (...) necessity of dialogue between different theoretical perspectives and the inclusive potential of the social-ecological framework to create a meeting point of theories in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of school bullying. (shrink)

By re-examining the writings of Gadamer and Habermas and their views of earlier interpretive theorists, this book offers a radical challenge to their idea of the 'dialogue' between researchers and their subjects.

In this article, I report on my reading of a debate between two practitioners and scholars of philosophy with children – Karin Murris and Darren Chetty. The parts of their exchanges I have chosen to focus on relate to a children's book called Tusk Tusk by David McKee. Their respective arguments raise questions for me about the relationship between the starting text and issues of importance in the wider world. Although Chetty sees benefits in using picture books, he appears to (...) believe there is an over-reliance on fables and other magical tales and that alternative starting points could be more suitable for exploring complex social issues with historical dimensions. Murris, on the other hand, seems to appreciate the lack of historical perspective that is evident in many of her preferred picture books. She values their ‘universal’ and ‘magical’ aspects because they stimulate ‘rhizomatic’ dialogues that are spontaneous and non-hierarchical. In this commentary I trace what, to me, are the most significant lines of argument put forward by Chetty and Murris. In response, I suggest some practical ideas for choosing texts and ‘reading against the text’ – a term both writers use. I also ask and answer the question: ‘In sessions of philosophical dialogue, should adults bring to children for consideration issues they regard as important or refrain from doing so?’. (shrink)

Since COVID-19 is a global-scale pandemic, it can only be solved on the global level. In this context, intercultural dialogues are of utmost importance. Indeed, different models of traditional ethics might be of assistance in constructing a new, global ethics that could help us confront the present predicament and prepare for other possible global crises that might await us in the future. The explosive, pandemic spread of COVID-19 in 2020 clearly demonstrated that in general, one of the most effective tools (...) for containment of the epidemics is precisely human and interpersonal solidarity, which must also be accompanied by a certain degree of autonomous self-discipline. The present paper follows the presumption that these types of personal and interpersonal attitudes are—inter alia— culturally conditioned and hence influenced by different traditional models of social ethics. In light of the fact that East-Asian or Sinic societies were more successful and effective in the process of containing and eliminating the virus compared to the strategies of the Euro-American regions, I will first question the widespread assumption that this effectiveness is linked to the authoritarian political traditions of the Sinic East and Southeast Asian areas. Then, I will critically introduce the Confucian ethics of relations, which in various ways has influenced the social structures of these regions, and clarify the question of whether and in which way the relics of this ethics had an actual effect on the crisis resolution measurements. The crucial aim of this paper is to contribute to the construction of theoretical groundworks for a new, transculturally grounded global ethics, which is more needed today than ever before. (shrink)

Digitalization of socio-cultural phenomena, including the education system, generates transformations of their qualitative characteristics and parameters, which requires research from the standpoint of methodological analysis and assessment of their possible consequences on humans and society. A significant element of the digital environment, in general, and educational, in particular, is the dialogue, the role of which has both cognitive and ideological, existential, social aspects. The purpose of the research is a philosophical analysis of the digital transformation of dialogue (...) in the context of the educational process, an assessment of its potential and impact on the individual. The research methodology has a complex, interdisciplinary character and is associated with the application of an existential approach to understanding the essence of dialogue, the theory of the development of individual thinking by L.S. Vygotsky, developed by the author of the theories of electronic culture and based on modern developments in the field of the introduction of digital tools in education. The study shows that dialogue in the digital learning environment becomes not so much a form of rapprochement, integration of subjects, as a form of autonomy, isolation, individuals, which changes the nature of learning and has social and existential consequences. This creates the need to transform the digital learning environment when using it from the position of supplementing it with ethical, socio-psychological and emotional components and support tools for the student. Based on the existential-axiological analysis, the positive and risky features of digital dialogue as one of the phenomena of electronic culture and online learning tools are revealed. The concept of digital dialogue in learning, the characteristics of its features, functions, role and influence on the learner in the digital environment are presented. The difficulties of dialogic learning characteristic of the digital environment are revealed, recommendations of a methodological and methodical nature for application in the education system are presented. (shrink)

In the 21stcentury, there is a turn of thinking toward its reorientation first of all to the human as an author of thought and not to the nature, existing independently of us and of the process of scientific knowledge obtaining. It is possible to see the difference of these two types of thinking in the context of dialogue between W. Whewell’s philosophy and the scientific investigations after the scientific revolution in the beginning of the 20thcentury. In the philosophy of (...) 21stcentury, man is a social being and this is the basis of social philosophy. The artificial world around us is created by a human, it has its foundation in the laws of thinking but not the laws of nature. The foundations of both systems are quite different. In what way can we achieve mutual understanding between them? From both sides some aspects can be put forward, for instance, the concept of a mediator of a thought. This concept is studied actively by W. Whewell and by philosophers of our time, and this leads in both cases to some unexpected interpretation of the basic question of philosophy: the border between thing and thought is becoming less noticeable. We can come to the same result, going by different ways. Whewell finds common qualities for some group of things. Social philosophers are interested in what makes things different. Not one of these idealizations corresponds completely to the reality. Always something is not taken into consideration. A thinker chooses out of real world some of its characteristics that become a basis of a thought system, which explains everything but in its own way. The paper demonstrates the way of possible creation of a new type of thinking. (shrink)

Cet article est une étude de l’importance de la référence au dialogue institutionnel pour la philosophie sociale critique aujourd’hui. Si le poids des institutions bride la liberté et la créativité dans le dialogue, c’est pour des raisons qu’il convient de chercher à cerner avec précision, en particulier pour comprendre le lien qui existe entre cette dimension institutionnelle et la formation de compromis. La prise en compte du dialogue institutionnel est cependant freinée par l’insistance morale sur la valeur (...) unique du consensus. Cela rend utile de revenir sur les raisons de la valorisation de formes raisonnées - et liées à des principes - de compromis ne se réduisant pas à des cas de modus vivendi imposé par un différentiel des forces. Ces réflexions peuvent conduire à dégager quelques perspectives sur les propriétés de la généralité des principes, de leurs difficultés typiques de mise en œuvre et de leur rôle dans la coordination autour d’interprétations et de significations. Ce travail fait, il devrait devenir possible de se saisir dans une perspective constructive de la question de la délimitation du périmètre des significations et des interprétations dans les échanges discursifs au sein d’un univers institutionnel. Il semble raisonnable d’y chercher la clé d’une éthique du compromis dans laquelle on ne se dissimule pas la distance qui nous sépare (en tant qu’êtres humaine) de ces interlocuteurs non humains que sont les institutions. (shrink)

This is a transcription of a debate on the concept of a person conducted in Moscow in 1983. David Bakhurst argues that Evald Ilyenkov's social constructivist conception of personhood, founded on Marx's thesis that the human essence is 'the ensemble of social relations', is either false or trivially true. F. T. Mikhailov, V. S. Bibler, V. A. Lektorsky and V. V. Davydov critically assess Bakhurst's arguments, elucidate and contextualize Ilyenkov's views, and defend, in contrasting ways, the claim that (...) human individuals are socially constituted beings. Issues discussed include: the concepts of activity and community and their relevance to the notions of mind and personhood; self-consciousness and its relation to personal identity; naturalism in Soviet thought. Translated from the Russian. (shrink)

Nowadays, protecting trust in social sciences also means engaging in open community dialogue, which helps to safeguard robustness and improve efficiency of research methods. The combination of open data, open review and open dialogue may sound simple but implementation in the real world will not be straightforward. However, in view of Begley and Ellis’s (2012) statement that, “the scientific process demands the highest standards of quality, ethics and rigour,” they are worth implementing. More importantly, they are feasible (...) to work on and likely will help to restore plausibility to social sciences research. Therefore, I feel it likely that the triplet of open data, open review and open dialogue will gradually emerge to become policy requirements regardless of the research funding source. (shrink)

One particularly interesting aspect of Hirschkop’s essay is the repertoire of “double-voiced words” it displays. I will enumerate just three of them:1. The Misaddressed Word. Apparently, Hirschkop has been arguing these points with someone else, whose voice has drowned out what was actually said by myself and the other contributors to the Forum on Bakhtin. In a number of cases, Hirschkop objects that we failed to say things that were, in fact, explicitly stated and attributes to us a different, phantom (...) position, which he then cites as evidence of “liberal,” individualistic, and “cold war” biases . Likewise, I ostensibly “implied” a number of things, thought Hirschkop offers no direct quotations as evidence .2. The Word That Lies in Ambush . In a way that has become increasingly common in theoretical essays, Hirschkop contents himself with stating only what is not the case and neglects telling us his conception of the alternative, correct position. For example, Hirschkop says: “Such ambiguities [in Bakhtin] are not the sign of an open and skeptical mind, but neither are they mere inconsistencies which can be safely ignored” . In consequence, respondents who presume to guess at his position, whether they guess rightly or wrongly, are subject to an accusation of total or partial misrepresentation of his position or, perhaps worse, of drawing typically liberal inferences.3. The Preemptive Word . Using a strategy familiar to most polemicists, Hirschkop attempts to discredit his adversaries by anticipating their objections within his own argument. Unfortunately, he projects responses—that no one has made—as if those responses were inevitable and seeks to dismiss them simply by naming them rather than answering them. Thus, he accuses my fellow contributors and me of a “kind of relativism, whose ideological affinities with the commonplaces of Western cold war discourse cannot be missed” and which “crops up again and again when Bakhtin is interpreted” . The phrase in parentheses and the word in quotation marks are an example of preemptive discourse. Gary Saul Morson is the author of The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s “Diary of a Writer” and the Traditions of Literary Utopia and the editor of Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies . He is currently completing a book on Tolstoy, one chapter of which appeared in the Summer 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. He was the guest editor of Critical Inquiry’s Forum on Mikhail Bakhtin, for which he wrote the introduction, “Who Speaks for Bakhtin?”. (shrink)

Mordechai Rotenberg, who is well known for his work on the pessimistic impact of Protestant ethics on the Western social sciences, presents here a systematic study derived from, and based on, Judeo-Hasidic ethics. Proceeding from the cabalistic-Hasidic concept of contraction (tzimtsum), according to which God's voluntary withdrawal into Himself to evacuate space for the world serves as a model for human behavior, Professor Rotenberg shows that it is not personal-social construction, but self- and social contraction, that explains (...) how the "is" and the "ought" of society are developed and maintained. (shrink)

Les sentiments d'ordre temporel s'étalent dans chaque branche du fait musical et dans chacun de ses moments. Les pratiques musicales se présentent donc comme des actes de temporalisation qui mettent en jeu l'ensemble du monde vital du sujet et activent ses mécanismes fonciers : la foi en l'avenir, la peur de la mort, l'angoisse du futur, le regret du passé, l'ancrage dans le présent, la fuite devant le présent, tout un univers existentiel qui ne touche pas seulement la musique mais (...) la vie humaine dans toute sa magnitude. Qu'il s'agisse des dispositions psychologiques profondes ou de la fuite virtuelle devant des contraintes inévitables, telles que la mort elle-même, l'art musical secoue l'affectivité. Ce serait dans ce type d'émotion, où se réunissent expérience esthétique et vécu existentiel, qu'il faudrait plonger à la recherche d'une spécificité de la musique parmi les faits sociaux. (shrink)

Hume begins his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by providing a discussion on what an ideal dialogue ought to look like. Many considerations that Hume raises coincide with similar concerns in contemporary social epistemology. This paper examines three aspects of Hume’s social epistemology: epistemic peerhood, inquiry norms and the possibility of rational persuasion. Interestingly, however, I will argue that the conversation between Philo, Cleanthes and Demea falls short of meeting Hume’s articulated standard of what an ideal dialogue (...) ought to look like. From this analysis, I defend the less popular view that Demea’s decision to leave the conversation (in Part XI) was entirely reasonable and suggest an explanation for why Hume decided to make Cleanthes the ‘hero’ of the Dialogues. (shrink)

This important text introduces students to both feminism and other social and political theories via an examination of the inter-relationship between different feminist positions and key contemporary debates. The book takes each debate in turn, outlines the main themes, discusses different feminist responses and evaluates the implications for real-life political and social issues. This user-friendly structure effectively redraws the map of contemporary feminist thought, offering a fresh and succinct summary of an extensive range of material and graphically demonstrating (...) the ongoing relevance and value of a feminist perspective. (shrink)

The global economic crisis makes closer collaboration between economics and other social sciences even more urgent. One major cause of divergence has been the attitudes of the parties towards the ‘market’. Yet, the market economy, in all its diversity, is one of the immutable facts of modern life. Understanding the causes of its survival will improve the dialogue. Another interesting puzzle is the lack of credible alternatives to it despite the depth of the crisis. The experience of the (...) economists in constructing models of society based on the behaviour of individuals composing it can be valuable for other social sciences. We apply the framework developed by ‘institutional economics’ to gain insights into the relations between Islam, capitalism and democracy. The article finishes with some observations on Turkey and draws lessons for other Muslim societies. (shrink)

The global economic crisis makes closer collaboration between economics and other social sciences even more urgent. One major cause of divergence has been the attitudes of the parties towards the ‘market’. Yet, the market economy, in all its diversity, is one of the immutable facts of modern life. Understanding the causes of its survival will improve the dialogue. Another interesting puzzle is the lack of credible alternatives to it despite the depth of the crisis. The experience of the (...) economists in constructing models of society based on the behaviour of individuals composing it can be valuable for other social sciences. We apply the framework developed by ‘institutional economics’ to gain insights into the relations between Islam, capitalism and democracy. The article finishes with some observations on Turkey and draws lessons for other Muslim societies. (shrink)