This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

Literature on maternal exposures and the risk of epigenetic changes or diseases in the offspring is growing. Paternal contributions are often not considered. However, some animal and epidemiologic studies on various contaminants, nutrition, and lifestyle‐related conditions suggest a paternal influence on the offspring's future health. The phenotypic outcomes may have been attributed to DNA damage or mutations, but increasing evidence shows that the inheritance of environmentally induced functional changes of the genome, and related disorders, are (also) driven by epigenetic components. (...) In this essay we suggest the existence of epigenetic windows of susceptibility to environmental insults during sperm development. Changes in DNA methylation, histone modification, and non‐coding RNAs are viable mechanistic candidates for a non‐genetic transfer of paternal environmental information, from maturing germ cell to zygote. Inclusion of paternal factors in future research will ultimately improve the understanding of transgenerational epigenetic plasticity and health‐related effects in future generations. (shrink)

Idealism and relativism were designed to assess different ethical ideological views. Their relation with attitudes toward a variety of outgroups has not been previously studied. Understanding how concerns over ethical principles and consequences are related to prejudiced attitudes could provide some insight into these constructs and into the nature of prejudice. In two studies totaling 311 participants, participants completed measures on ethical ideologies, right-wing authoritarianism, and attitudes toward various outgroups. The differential predictive validities of ethical ideologies, in comparison to right-wing (...) authoritarianism, on prejudicial attitudes toward dangerous, derogated, and dissident outgroup members were examined. We found that both idealism and relativism contributed to predicting attitudes regarding outgroup members, over and above right-wing authoritarianism. As such, people’s personal moral standards and code of conduct for dealing with interpersonal problems and transgressions can partly explain their negative attitudes toward outgroup members. More research is required to determine the unique influence of ethical ideologies over other constructs previously shown to predict prejudice. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on three aspects of Nietzsche’s art of living that have become relevant today especially in the United States (but not only here): first, regarding some facets of the economic-political conditions of any contemporary art of living; second, the widespread adoption of Nietzsche’s notion of self-overcoming and artistic self-design in entrepreneurship and individual’s lives; and third, how his notion of ‘incorporation’ has been further developed in current approaches to habit design. Eventually I will show via the example of (...) Anthony Robbins that some notions of Nietzsche’s art of living have become most popular outside of academia, namely in the commercial industries of what has been called ‘self-growth’ or ‘self-development.’. (shrink)

Noncoding RNA has arrived at centre stage in recent years with the discovery of “hidden transcriptomes” in many higher organisms. Over two decades ago, noncoding transcripts were discovered in Drosophila Hox complexes, but their function has remained elusive. Recent studies1-3 have examined the role of these noncoding RNAs in Hox gene regulation, and have generated a fierce debate as to whether the noncoding transcripts are important for silencing or activation. Here we review the evidence, and show that, by taking developmental (...) timing into account, some of these apparently conflicting results can be resolved. We examine current models that explain these data and explore alternative interpretations. BioEssays 30:110–121, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

L'idealisme radical de Jean-Michel Le Lannou conteste l'identification de la pensee et de la representation. Loin de soumettre a la vacuite et la mort, l'abstraction manifeste ses puissances d'exces. Plus rien ne nous oblige a persister dans notre amour du fini. Pourtant, la philosophie s'est longtemps meprise sur elle-meme. D'ou provient une telle mesentente sur le desir du penser? Montrer comment la pensee a pu ainsi se fourvoyer sur elle-meme doit permettre d'entreprendre sa liberation definitive. Les etudes reunies ici s'attachent (...) avec ambition a eclairer ce mouvement insurrectionnel d'une pensee qui refuse de se laisser retenir par la particularite et qui, dans son detachement meme, rejoint l'affirmation substantielle la plus intense. (shrink)

Amartya Sen has demonstrated a possible inconsistency between a (liberal) right and Pareto optimality. Neither Sen nor the subsequent literature have discussed the origin of the rights that lead to the liberal paradox. In this article I examine one possible origin of rights definitions-a constitutional contract agreed to by all members of the community. Constitutional rights are show to be vulnerable to a similar paradox as with liberal rights, but if the writers of the constitution were correct in their choice (...) of actions to protect, such paradoxes will be unlikely and involve small welfare losses when they do occur. The article demonstrates that both the origin of rights and their potential role in advancing the interests of citizens can be explained using a utilitarian/welfarist methodology. (shrink)

Marx’s theory of ground rent has been widely used to help understand the trinity of land, labor, and capital. However, limited attention has been paid to the role of water within the Marxian rent framework. This lack of attention proves troubling due to the role of surface waters as an essential means of production throughout capitalism. Here I restate Marxian ground rent in the form of water rent and discuss the function of water-rent in the two dominant surface water rights (...) doctrines of the United States—the riparian doctrine and the doctrine of prior appropriation. In doing so, I revise the distinction between differential rent 1 and differential rent 2 to provide more analytically useful categories. Paying special attention to issues of drought and scarcity, I fully articulate the function of Marxian rent and its four forms for both surface water rights doctrines, while clearly stating where they do and do not differ. (shrink)

La métaphysique est l’affirmation de la priorité de l’Être sur la puissance. En toutes ses variations stratégiques, elle retient la pensée dans la prison de l’égalité à soi. Après la physique qui n’a pu arrêter la pensée à la seule évidence sensible, la métaphysique produit les catégories réflexives d’une présence désormais reconnue jusque dans les fondements mêmes de sa représentation rationnelle. Un même désir, une même sève irrigue tout l’arbre de l’Être. Sous le tronc de la physique, les...

Band 1. Bücher 1, 3, 7 und 8 -- Band 2. Bücher 2, 4, 5 und 6.

Das neue Versorgungsrecht für Beamte, Richter und Pensionäre Erhebliche Kostensteigerungen der öffentlichen Haushalte, die zunehmende Zahl der Versorgungsempfänger und deren längere Lebensdauer, aber auch die politische Fortentwicklung der Beamtenversorgung im Einklang mit dem Rentenrecht haben zu zahlreichen und gravierenden Änderungen - aus der Sicht der Beamten und Pensionäre meist Verschlechterungen - des für alle Dienstherrn in Bund und Ländern einheitlichen Rechts der Beamtenversorgung geführt. Dieser Praxiskommentar enthält zahlreiche Anwendungshilfen, Beispiele und Modellrechnungen. Bestens geeignet für jeden Beamten, insbesondere für die mit (...) der Beamtenversorgung befassten Personalleiter und Sachbearbeiter sowie Gewerkschaften des öffentlichen Dienstes. (shrink)

Is it possible that all of the social sciences could employ a common methodology? If so, what would it be? This article adresses these questions. It takes off from James Coleman’s recent book, The Foundations of Social Theory. Coleman’s social theory is built on the postulate that individuals are rational actors, the same postulate that most of modern economics is built upon. This article critiques the use of this postulate in economics, and thus questions whether it is a useful building (...) block for the methodological foundations of social science research. It proposes an adaptive view of human behavior as an alternative in which preferences are conditioned by past experience. The work of Joseph Schumpeter is discussed as an exemplar of the methodology advocated here. (shrink)

The basic hypothesis of this book is that linguistic reference to kinds should be seen as reference to sortal concepts, i.e. cognitive categories for identifying and classifying objects. Viewed that way, kinds serve as the interface between the conceptual system and the grammatical system. Kind-level predicates differ as to whether they presuppose (e.g. to be extinct) or entail (e.g. to invent) the existence of objects, with crucial consequences for the interpretation of indefinite argument noun phrases. Moreover, object reference always involves (...) underlying kind reference, but kind reference does not always involve object reference. This asymmetry, once recognized, proves useful in solving otherwise puzzling problems in semantic composition. (shrink)

This book comprises a series of essays exploring the transformative insights of Fichte, Herder, Humboldt and the Romantics into the seminal role of language and imagination in shaping human experience and art, including how language, self-consciousness and understanding arise through speech. Along with topics concerning the literary work of art, the philosophy of history, German humanities, philology, and semiotics, the author also discusses the place of phenomenology and the concept of interpretation in literary theory. In highlighting ideas from A. W. (...) Vico, F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, and Schleiermacher, the author also elucidates romantic poetics, translation, discourse and cultural transfer themes. Das vorliegende Werk umfasst eine Reihe hermeneutischer Abhandlungen des Autors, in deren Fokus die Deutung der Sprachauffassungen Fichtes, Herders, Humboldts und der Romantiker steht. Der Autor untersucht dabei die Formierung von Erfahrung und Kunst durch Sprache und Einbildungskraft sowie die Entstehung von Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein und Verstehen in der Rede. Desgleichen behandelt er Semiotik, Philologie und Philosophie der Geschichte, sowie die Rolle der Phänomenologie und des Interpretationsbegriffs in der Literaturkritik. Im Besonderen hebt der Autor die Auffassungen von Vico, A.W. und F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, F. Schleiermacher hervor und beleuchtet Übersetzungs-, Diskurs- und Kulturtransfertheorien sowie die Poetik der Romantiker. (shrink)

What are the effects of our environment on human development and the next generation? Numerous studies have provided ample evidence that a healthy environment and lifestyle of the mother is important for her offspring. Biological mechanisms underlying these environmental influences have been proposed to involve alterations in the epigenome. Is there enough evidence to suggest a similar contribution from the part of the father? Animal models provide proof of a transgenerational epigenetic effect through the paternal germ line, but can this (...) be translated to humans? To date, literature on fathers is scarce. Human studies do not always incorporate appropriate tools to evaluate paternal influences or epigenetic effects. In reviewing the literature, I stress the need to explore and recognize paternal contributions to offspring's health within the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis, and coin this new concept the Paternal Origins of Health and Disease paradigm. A better understanding of preconceptional origins of disease through the totality of paternal exposures, or the paternal exposome, will provide evidence-based public health recommendations for future fathers. A father's hereditary contribution exceeds that of his DNA sequence. The environment can regulate systems such as the sperm epigenome, which is inheritable as well and may steer the genome and health status of his offspring. We here suggest a new concept, the Paternal Origins of Health and Disease, as part of the DOHaD theory. (shrink)

The case describes the developments of an ethics code observed in the local government of Suffolk County, New York, USA. In Suffolk County, there is now a dedicated Board of Ethics Agency (“Board”) within the local government to ensure that business operations and government operations run as ethically compliant as possible. This Board was created in 2012 in order to follow compliance with a law that established a replacement for the Ethics Commission (previously existing within Suffolk County) because this Ethics (...) Commission had been involved in a serious controversy. The former County Executive, Steve Levy, was found guilty of compromising the “integrity of an ethics commission”. Suffolk County government prescribed various measures in order to ensure that the citizens of Suffolk County were protected from business ethical violations. The Board also preemptively created laws that discouraged businesses from acting unethically. (shrink)

To be a prisoner either in Plato's cave or in the Beast's castle is a form of existence no one would desire. And yet the story of Disney's Beauty and the Beast – in particular, the spell that imprisoned the Beast and his servants – is a tale as old as time. It is one's common human experience: one's recognition that he/she is shackled by ignorance and unfulfilled potential, and his/her desperate desire to escape. Unfortunately, however, breaking the chains and (...) ending the spell is no easy feat. For just as the Beast and his household companions represent a cave‐like imprisonment, Belle represents in her person the two ideals necessary to break the spell: love (which drew her to the castle to find her father) and beauty (which can compel the love of another). Love never happens without an encounter with beauty. (shrink)

Les innombrables interprétations de l’allégorie de la caverne, aussi réduc­trices ou spéculatives, aussi fidèles à la lettre ou à l'esprit du texte soient-elles, paraissent s'effacer les unes les autres, comme balayées par la souplesse d'un texte qui autorise les lectures les plus élémentaires comme les plus raffinées. Cet "étrange tableau" qu'expose Socrate s'insère immé­dia­tement entre deux pôles d'intelligibilité censés en assurer la compréhension : l'image de la ligne au...

Dans le temps même où elle transforme le donné en reflet, la pensée tend à se représenter sous ses actes la présence silencieuse d’un irréfléchi qui résiste à son activité de séparation. Dans sa protestation contre l’emprison­ne­ment de l’évidence, la réflexion peine à se départir de la croyance que son écart n’est que provisoire et qu’il précède une ferme appropriation. Nous ne réfléchirions que pour mieux nous attacher au monde, à la vie et à nous-mêmes. Mais le désir de la (...) réflexion n’est... (shrink)

Nous nous plaisons à faire varier nos représentations. Nous jouissons en elles du dépôt stupéfiant de notre activité consciente de délimitation. Toujours nous croyons, comme le réalisme spontané nous y enjoint, que la pensée ne s’éprouve qu’en dehors d’elle-même, absorbée par l’œuvre de re­connaissance de ce qui la précède, de ce qui lui est « donné ». En cette pseudo-évidence, la forme est d’emblée présentée comme ce qui, traçant le contour, fait apparaître du fini, conformément aux conditio...

While readers of Euripides' Hippolytus have long regarded Phaedra's deltos as a mechanism of punitive revenge, I argue here that the tablet models itself on a judicial curse (defixio) and that its main function is to ensure victory for Phaedra in the upcoming “trial” over her reputation. In support of my thesis I examine three interrelated phenomena: first, Hippolytus' infamous assertion that his tongue swore an oath while his mind remains unsworn (612); second, Phaedra's status as a biaiothanatos; and third, (...) Phaedra's claim that Hippolytus “will learn sophrosune” (731), a speech act that, I conclude, anticipates the silencing effect on Hippolytus of Phaedra's death and her writing. (shrink)

In its attempt to prove that voters, politicians, and bureaucrats are motivated by the public interest, Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics overlooks a great deal of public-choice research, to which much has been added during the two decades since it was published. The importance of self-interest at both the micro and macro levels of politics becomes clear once one looks not simply at the “inputs” of a democracy but at its “outputs” as well. The prevalence of interest groups, (...) the dysfunction of the United States tax code, the lobbying by unions for their members’ self-interest, the earmarks in the Patriot Act, the numerous cases of corruption in Western democracies, and the dissatisfaction of citizens with their governments’ failings all point to the importance of self-interest in politics. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1877, a young mathematician named Joseph Boussinesq presented amémoireto theAcadémiedes sciences which demonstrated that some differential equations may have more than one solution. Boussinesq linked this fact to indeterminism and to a possible solution to the free will versus determinism debate. Boussinesq's main interest was to reconcile his philosophical and religious views with science by showing that matter and motion do not suffice to explain all there is in the world. His argument received mixed criticism that addressed both his (...) philosophical views and the scientific content of his work, pointing to the physical “realisticness” of multiple solutions. While Boussinesq proved to be able to face the philosophical criticism, the scientific objections became a serious problem, thus slowly moving the focus of the debate from the philosophical plane to the scientific one. This change of perspective implied a wide discussion on topics such as instability, the sensitivity to initial conditions, and the conservation of energy. The Boussinesq debate is an example of a philosophically motivated debate that transforms into a scientific one, an example of the influence of philosophy on the development of science. (shrink)

Focusing on the problem of the Prime Matter in the Philoponus' Contra Proclum (Book XI), this study offers the first translation, in French, extensively annoted and commented in the context of the 'quaestio disputata' of the Neoplatonic ...

Ideas surrounding mechanicism and materialism are so prevalent and fundamental in early modern and modern philosophy and critical theory that almost all key intellectual, political, and theological questions have been cast in their terms. From the 1730s onward, such questions were increasingly connected to the idea of the "man-machine" – the mechanical android. This was not least due to Jacques de Vaucanson's work from the 1730s, and the work of other artisans in the following decades, whose mechanical androids quickly became (...) well-known and provided actual manifestations of man-machines. Eighteenth-century mechanical androids were more sophisticated in regard to mechanical complexity and craftsmanship than those of... (shrink)

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine raises fundamental ethical issues. As one example, AI systems in the field of mental health successfully detect signs of mental disorders, such as depression, by using data from social media. These AI depression detectors (AIDDs) identify users who are at risk of depression prior to any contact with the healthcare system. The article focuses on the ethical implications of AIDDs regarding affected users’ health-related autonomy. Firstly, it presents the (ethical) discussion of AI (...) in medicine and, specifically, in mental health. Secondly, two models of AIDDs using social media data and different usage scenarios are introduced. Thirdly, the concept of patient autonomy, according to Beauchamp and Childress, is critically discussed. Since this concept does not encompass the specific challenges linked with the digital context of AIDDs in social media sufficiently, the current analysis suggests, finally, an extended concept of health-related digital autonomy. (shrink)

What is the cash value of Richard Rorty’s philosophy and politics of religion? This paper analyzes the political promise of Rorty’s shift from atheism to anticlericalism in the last decade of his life. It seeks to deliver primarily a concise summary of this shift, and of its transformative motivation. Then a critique of this shift is followed by the suggestion of a friendly amendment: its extension towards a pragmatic pluralism. The outlined Rortyan conception of a serene, and, at the same (...) time robust, politics of religion is proposed as a promising answer to the question of how secular liberal citizens should react to the “return of the gods.”. (shrink)

Numéro spécial de la Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Avec des contributions de Philippe Mongin, François Maniquet, Irènne Berthonnet, Louis Larue et Thomas M. Mueller.