The model of mind and body in Tibetan medical practice is based on Buddhist theory, and is neither dualistic in a Cartesian sense, nor monistic. Rather, it represents a genuine alternative to these positions by presenting mind/body interaction as a dynamic process that is situated within the context of the individual’s relationships with others and the environment. Due to the distinctiveness, yet interdependence, of mind and body, the physician’s task is to heal the patient’s mind (blo-gso) as well as body. (...) This in turn emphasizes the central importance of ‘compassion’ in the physician/patient relationship. This article investigates how Tibetan medical practitioners understand and enact the mind/ body and physician/patient relationships, and how this relates to theoretical explications of these relationships in Tibetan medical and Buddhist teachings. Furthermore, Tibetan medicine provides an interesting model for comparison with embodied theories of cognition, which see consciousness, the body and its environment as integral parts of a complex, dynamical cognitive system. (shrink)

A humane and respectful treatment of patients by the staff has inspired the creation of the Department of Humanism and Bioethics at the University Hospital of Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá which not only has met, but even surpassed established goals. Since 2013, the Department has developed different activities that have made it possible to respond more ethically to the daily needs of patients and to strengthen other humanization processes. Currently, the Department of Humanism and Bioethics addresses (...) five lines of work: a continuing education program, an assistance advisory program, support, and strengthening of existing committees, support for the activities of our institutional humanization program and research activities. This article updates the experience of this Department, specifically focusing on notable changes in the last years. (shrink)

In this thesis, I give a metascientific account of causality in medicine. I begin with two historical cases of causal discovery. These are the discovery of the causation of Burkitt’s lymphoma by the Epstein-Barr virus, and of the various viral causes suggested for cervical cancer. These historical cases then support a philosophical discussion of causality in medicine. This begins with an introduction to the Russo- Williamson thesis (RWT), and discussion of a range of counter-arguments against it. Despite these, I argue (...) that the RWT is historically workable, given a small number of modifications. I then expand Russo and Williamson’s account. I first develop their suggestion that causal relationships in medicine require some kind of evidence of mechanism. I begin with a number of accounts of mechanisms and produce a range of consensus features of them. I then develop this consensus position by reference to the two historical case studies with an eye to their operational competence. In particular, I suggest that it is mechanistic models and their representations which we are concerned with in medicine, rather than the mechanism as it exists in the world. -/- I then employ these mechanistic models to give an account of the sorts of evidence used in formulating and evaluating causal claims. Again, I use the two human viral oncogenesis cases to give this account. I characterise and distinguish evidence of mechanism from evidence of difference-making, and relate this to mechanistic models. I then suggest the relationship between types of evidence presents us with a means of tackling the reference-class problem. This sets the scene for the final chapter. Here, I suggest the manner in which these two different classes of evidence become integrated is also reflected in the way that developing research programmes change as their associated causal claims develop. (shrink)

Western sociology of the body, despite its attempt to create a somatic approach to human existence, inevitably shares many of the rationalistic and Cartesian assumptions of wider Western sociology. A contrasting, and in many ways radically different approach is that found in both classical and contemporary Japanese thought. In this article two major contemporary Japanese theorists of the body - Ichikawa Hiroshi and Yuasa Yasuo - are introduced and their work examined as distinctive, and in the West virtually unknown, (...) contributions to body analysis. Their views are briefly contrasted with some of the major themes of Western, and in particular British, sociology of the body and the implications of their work for future investigation of the human body are sketched out. (shrink)

Introducción: cultivar el pensamiento positivo en el ser humano es una necesidad y está relacionado estrechamente con su calidad de vida. Los estudiantes universitarios transitan por una etapa del ciclo vital individual importante, una de sus metas es lograr una profesión; tener una actitud mental optimista puede ser de gran ayuda para el alcance de sus propósitos. Métodos: se realizó una investigación de tipo descriptiva y transversal con el objetivo de determinar un sistema de acciones para alcanzar un pensamiento positivo (...) en los estudiantes universitarios desde diciembre de 2012 a julio de 2014. Se emplearon encuestas en el diagnóstico para identificar las necesidades sentidas de aprendizaje, el nivel de conocimientos sobre el tema y el estado actual de la población objeto de estudio, constituida por los 167 estudiantes del plan D de la Facultad Tecnología de la Salud de Camagüey. Se analizó la información a través del procesamiento de los datos. Se utilizaron también métodos del nivel teórico: análisis-síntesis, inducción-deducción y análisis documental. Se aplicó el consentimiento educado. Resultados: se mostró la necesidad de conocer sobre el tema y la certeza de que no muchos aplican el pensamiento positivo. Conclusiones: se reveló la necesidad de lograr una cultura de salud con la aplicación de acciones para el logro en los estudiantes del pensamiento positivo. Introduction: Nurturing positive thinking in human beings is a necessity and it's closely linked with their quality of life. University students face an important stage of their vital cycle. One of their goals is to achieve/attain a profession; that is why, to have an optimistic attitude can be of great help to reach this purpose. Methods: a descriptive and cross-sectional research was carried out in in order to determine a system of actions to develop positive thinking in university students from December 2012 to July 2014. Surveys were used in the diagnosis so as to identify the real learning necessities, the level of knowledge on the topic and the current status of the target population, which was composed by 167 students studying under curriculum D at the Health Technology School in Camagüey. The information was analyzed through the processing of data. Methods of the theoretical level were also used: analysis-synthesis, induction-deduction and documental analysis. Educated consent was obtained. Results: the necessity of knowing about this topic, as well as the certainty that not many students implement positive thinking were demonstrated. Conclusions: the necessity of acquiring knowledge on health topics was revealed through the application of actions to develop students` positive thinking. (shrink)

The existentialism of the human being within the Latin American context marks a fundamental essence, from the intrinsic and the extrinsic, to identify their relationship with their other self, within the otherness that characterizes the thinking being faced to his own thought. The Coreguaje are an indigenous ethnic group settled in the department of Caquetá, Colombia. With their own language, the Korebajü, and their cultural identity, they make echo of their wisdom of the jungle where the autochthonous roots (...) of their daily work can be found through their customs, their rituals, their language and their own territory. Giving yourself away and understanding the other is one of their fundamental principles to establish interpersonal relationships within their habitat. Similarly, identifying their cosmic and ancestral knowledge, which is the starting point within the knowledge of the Amazon rainforest, makes this conceptualization a treasury of the cosmogonic vision that the Coreguaje ancestors develop. Thus, their postulates can be ordered under three conceptions: the Chejaboebü, the relationship with nature, water, wind, thunder, the moon and the sun; the Chejasanaba, the relationship with the air and, the Chejasesebü, the relationship with the stars, atavistic positions that forge a philosophical dialogue manifested in the orality of their own knowledge. (shrink)

The existentialism of the human being within the Latin American context marks a fundamental essence, from the intrinsic and the extrinsic, to identify their relationship with their other self, within the otherness that characterizes the thinking being faced to his own thought. The Coreguaje are an indigenous ethnic group settled in the department of Caquetá, Colombia. With their own language, the Korebajü, and their cultural identity, they make echo of their wisdom of the jungle where the autochthonous roots (...) of their daily work can be found through their customs, their rituals, their language and their own territory. Giving yourself away and understanding the other is one of their fundamental principles to establish interpersonal relationships within their habitat. Similarly, identifying their cosmic and ancestral knowledge, which is the starting point within the knowledge of the Amazon rainforest, makes this conceptualization a treasury of the cosmogonic vision that the Coreguaje ancestors develop. Thus, their postulates can be ordered under three conceptions: the Chejaboebü, the relationship with nature, water, wind, thunder, the moon and the sun; the Chejasanaba, the relationship with the air and, the Chejasesebü, the relationship with the stars, atavistic positions that forge a philosophical dialogue manifested in the orality of their own knowledge. (shrink)

Over the past decade or two, a number of scholars have proposed that the aesthetic experi­ence of the sublime offers a ground on which to build an environmental ethic. Among these scholars, Emily Brady has offered the most sustained and comprehensive analysis of this topic. Her position is firmly grounded in Kant’s aesthetic theory. She (and others) conclude that the experience of the sublime provides a robust aesthetic basis for an environmental ethic; however, Kant’s aesthetic theory presents difficulties for this (...) position insofar as he claims that the experience of the sublime reveals the superiority of humans (via our morality and faculty of reason) over nature. One source of Kant’s anthropocentrism is his concept of “safe distance.” However, drawing on Arnold Berleant’s theory of aesthetic engagement and Thoreau’s account of the sublime in “Ktaadn,” an engaged—or de-distanced—experience of the sublime offers a more solid foundation for an aesthetically grounded environmental ethic. (shrink)

Pro-social basic human values and civic involvement. The moderating role of survival vs self-expression cultural context The present study investigated a hypothesis that the pro-social values differentiated by S. Schwartz's model of basic human values - universalism and benevolence - would positively predict civic involvement. Most importantly, authors expected that the type of pro-social value that would play a dominant motivational role would depend on moderating role of the level of self-expression and benevolence - cultural value dimension developed (...) by R. Inglehart. Based on discriminant function analyses performed on the data gathered in 17 European countries through the European Social Survey conducted in 2002, authors found that universalism predicts civic involvement only in self-expression countries, whereas the role of benevolence is rather neglectable and independent of the cultural context. The results are discussed with reference to cross-cultural differences in Europe. (shrink)

We examine the important roles of two forms of capital—human and social—in the accumulation of critical resources that enable firms to adopt sound environmental management practices which contribute to better firm performance. Drawing on human and social capital theories and the resource-based view of the firm, we tested this proposition using data from a survey of 141 small manufacturing firms drawn from a survey of business enterprises in a metropolitan city in the southern region of the Philippines. The (...) results of our analysis using structural equation modelling-partial least square approach show that both human capital such as age, experience and education of managers of the firm and social capital such as external managerial ties and networks have significant and positive contribution to the environmental management resources of firms although the effects vary in magnitude. The accumulation of environmental management resources not only is positively linked to the adoption by firms of pro-environment practices but also fully mediates the effects of the two types of capital on the adoption of such practices. Pro-environment practices are positively linked to better performance outcomes. The findings underscore the need to account for the intangible and more tacit forms of capital such as managerial talent, knowledge, skills and social ties and networks in the wider debate on how small manufacturing firms in developing countries can address the pressing need to integrate environmental sustainability in business. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards are rapidly becoming indispensable mechanisms in the overall workings of university institutions. In fact, the ethical dimension is an important aspect of research governance processes present in institutions of higher learning. However, it is often deemed that research in the social sciences do not require ethical appraisal or clearance, because of the alleged absence of harm in conducting such research. This is an erroneous and dangerous assumption given that research in social sciences poses (...) various and complex dilemmas related to ethics. The article aims to gauge the importance of ethical appraisal at a particular institution of higher learning’s Faculty of Humanities. This is done by scrutinising its defunct REC, and the views that Heads of Departments of the Faculty have of ethics in research and the need for ethical appraisal by this REC. Finally, some suggestions are made to proceed to review and restructure the current REC with the ultimate objective to make it functional again. It was found that the development and discussion around ethics in research and ethical appraisal are part of a much needed thrust to sensitise the entire Faculty and the institution on the widespread beneficial repercussions of ethical awareness in research and beyond. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that arguments for and against cloning fail to make their case because of one or both of the following reasons: 1) they take for granted customary beliefs and assumptions that are far from being unquestionable; 2) they tend to ignore the context in which human cloning is developed. I will analyze some of the assumptions underlying the main arguments that have been offered for and against cloning. Once these assumptions are critically (...) analyzed, arguments both rejecting and supporting human cloning seem to lose weight. I will first briefly present the main arguments that have been proposed against cloning and I will argue that they fail to establish their case. In the next section I will evaluate some of the positive arguments that have been offered supporting such technology. This analysis will show that the case for cloning also fails. Finally, I will maintain that because critics and especially supporters of this technology neglect the context in which human cloning is developed and might be implemented, their arguments are far from compelling. (shrink)

Corruption within the private sector has often not been dealt with in Brazil. Organizations may find corrupt acts in its operations or practices, but specific concepts and programs to avoid them are neither concrete nor clear. Some Brazilian stockholders have become aware of the risks involved in unethical procedures and are adopting the Best Practices of Corporate Governance initiative. International agencies have intensively supported organizations and governments in an effort to define policies that inhibit illegal or corrupt cultural habits throughout (...) the world, but Brazilian practitioners show insufficient response. Skepticism may indicate a lack of understanding about how an ethical leadership can guide employees, setting high standards for the organizational culture and climate, clearly defining limits of correct behavior, and creating appropriate codes of ethics. Transparency still has to be discovered as a significant tool to encourage professionalism in performance and reporting of data in Brazilian companies. In this article, we analyze the ethical behavior of the purchasing department of a multinational company in its host country, Brazil. It focuses specifically on the supplier–buyer relationship. The results indicate that despite the negative reputation Brazilians have in business ethics, a company can still develop a positive and ethical relationship with its stakeholders. Communication, transparency, compliance with the company’s code of conduct as well as the supplier’s awareness of the buyer’s code of conduct are the factors which influence the supplier–buyer relationship. Transparency can be used as a tool to reduce corruption, thereby increasing ethical behavior and company image. Good ethical behavior can help to build up a company’s image. (shrink)

Este trabalho desenvolve a concordância estética e a diferença política entre Hegel e o jovem Lukács da "Teoria do romance". O jovem autor húngaro se apropria da estrutura conceitual da "Estética" de Hegel, pois entende as formas poéticas em sua relação com o desenvolvimento do conteúdo histórico. Lukács e Hegel concebem, desse modo, as duas formas da grande épica (epopeia e romance) em estreita conexão com o momento histórico que as fundamenta: a Grécia arcaica configurada por Homero e a experiência (...) da fragmentação e da consolidação da subjetividade lírica que a modernidade traz consigo. Não obstante a assunção da herança estética de Hegel, o jovem Lukács se afasta das conclusões positivas de Hegel acerca da modernidade, a saber: da suspensão da liberdade fragmentada e lírica da sociedade civil burguesa pela liberdade objetiva na unidade e totalidade da forma Estado, unidade e totalidade verdadeiramente apreendidas pela forma filosófica. Lukács, ao contrário de Hegel, entende a modernidade a partir do ponto de partida negativo, isto é, não a vê como a consumação da liberdade do homem, mas a compreende como a experiência do sujeito fragmentado e separado das estruturas sociais. This work develops the aesthetic agreement and the political difference between Hegel and the young Lukács, who wrote the "Theory of the Novel". The young Hungarian author appropriates the conceptual structure of the Hegel's "Aesthetics", because he understands the poetic forms in their relation with the development of historical content. Lukács and Hegel thereby conceive the two forms of the great epic (Greek epic poem and novel) in close connection with the historical moment in which they arise: the archaic Greece configured by Homer and the experience of fragmentation and consolidation of the lyrical subjectivity brought by modernity itself. Despite the assumption of Hegel's aesthetic heritage, the young Lukács departs from Hegel's positive conclusions about modernity, namely: from the suspension of the fragmented and lyrical liberty of the bourgeois civil society by the objective freedom in the unity and totality of the State form, unity and totality truly seized by the philosophical form. Lukács, in opposition to Hegel, understands modernity from the negative starting point, that is, he does not understand it as the consumation of human freedom, but as the experience of the human subject fragmented and separated from the social structures. (shrink)

Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy is based on Max Scheler’s theory of values and anthropology. Frankl builds his psychological thinking based on critical concepts of Schelerian thinking such as (i) value and goods, (ii) will and feelings, (iii) the hierarchy of values, and (iv) the idea of person. It is with them that he develops his original theses of (i) the spiritual motivation of human action, (ii) the search for meaning and (iii) the spiritual unconscious. In doing so, he offered not (...) only a psychotherapy of values, but also a new theory of positive human motivation, not conceived as a result of deficiency or need, but as a result of the free spirit toward objective values. The human search for meaning in life can only be successful by living and realizing superior values, in the hierarchical sense proposed by Scheler. (shrink)

Ever since Chomsky, language has become the paradigmatic example of an innate capacity. Infants of only a few months old are aware of the phonetic structure of their mother tongue, such as stress-patterns and phonemes. They can already discriminate words from non-words and acquire a feel for the grammatical structure months before they voice their first word. Language reliably develops not only in the face of poor linguistic input, but even without it. In recent years, several scholars have extended this (...) uncontroversial view into the stronger claim that natural language is a human-specific adaptation. As I shall point out, this position is more problematic because of a lack of conceptual clarity over what human-specific cognitive adaptations are, and how they relate to modularity, the notion that mental phenomena arise from several domain-specific cognitive structures. The main aim of this paper is not to discuss whether or not language is an adaptation, but rather, to examine the concept of modularity with respect to
the evolution and development of natural language.
. (shrink)

At first glance, one of the most obvious places to look for moral progress is in individuals, in particular in moral development from childhood to adulthood. In fact, that moral progress is possible is a foundational assumption of moral education. Beyond the general agreement that moral progress is not only possible but even a common feature of human development things become blurry, however. For what do we mean by ‘progress’? And what constitutes moral progress? Does the idea (...) of individual moral progress presuppose a predetermined end or goal of moral education and development, or not? In this article we analyze the concept of moral progress to shed light on the psychology of moral development and vice versa; these analyses are found to be mutually supportive. We suggest that: moral progress should be conceived of as development that is evaluated positively on the basis of relatively stable moral criteria that are the fruit and the subject of an ongoing conversation; moral progress does not imply the idea of an end-state; individual moral progress is best conceived of as the development of various components of moral functioning and their robust integration in a person’s identity; both children and adults can progress morally - even though we would probably not speak in terms of progress in the case of children - but adults’ moral progress is both more hard-won and to a greater extent a personal project rather than a collective effort. (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

As the world has turned into a global village, it has created many challenges for human resource departments regarding the management of a diverse workforce in satisfying the employees and creating a diverse yet safe environment for them that does not make them uncomfortable. The current study has investigated the effect of human resource practices on the diversity climate with the mediation of job satisfaction. The data has been collected from human resource personnel of multinationals in China (...) with the help of 316 participants. The study deployed SEM analysis to analyze and measure the effect of training and development along with performance appraisal on the diversity climate. The findings of the study revealed that training and growth or development do not have an impact on the diversity climate, however, performance appraisal has a strong positive impact. Similarly, the mediating role of job satisfaction has been found to ensure the relationship of training and development and performance appraisal with the diversity climate. This study has provided certain implications for the HR managers of multinationals to ensure a secure diversity climate for a diverse workforce. (shrink)

Abstract This paper describes the early history of magnetochemistry: the search for chemical effects of magnetism in the nineteenth century. Some early researchers, such as Johann Wilhelm Ritter, attempted to reproduce with magnets the effects that had been produced by electricity and Volta’s battery. For several decades, researchers successively reported positive results and denied claims concerning the effect of magnetism in oxidation, electrolysis, reduction of metals from saline solutions, crystallisation, change of colour of vegetable tinctures and other chemical reactions. (...) In the two last decades of the nineteenth century some effects were accepted as real, and a thermodynamic theory of the influence of magnetic fields upon chemical reactions was developed. Finally, Dragomir Hurmuzescu was able to create reproducible experiments and measured the electromotive force between two electrodes, with or without the presence of magnetic fields, confirming the existence of the phenomenon and obtaining results compatible with the theoretical predictions. Afterwards, this magnetochemical effect was accepted as real, but the effect was weak and its practical importance was negligible. The subject was gradually forgotten. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-26 DOI 10.1007/s10698-011-9127-8 Authors Roberto de Andrade Martins, Department of Physics, State University of Paraiba, Campina Grande, PB, Brazil Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238. (shrink)

Morality is often defined in opposition to the natural "instincts," or as a tool to keep those instincts in check. New findings in neuroscience, social psychology, animal behaviour, and anthropology have brought us back to the original Darwinian position that moral behaviour is continuous with the social behavior of animals, and most likely evolved to enhance the cooperativeness of society. In this view, morality is part of human nature rather than its opposite. This interdisciplinary volume debates the origin and (...) working of human morality within the context of science as well as religion and philosophy. Experts from widely different backgrounds speculate how morality may have evolved, how it develops in the child, and what science can tell us about its working and origin. They also discuss how to deal with the age-old facts-versus-values debate, also known as the naturalistic fallacy. The implications of this exchange are enormous, as they may transform cherished views on if and why we are the only moral species. (shrink)

One of the founders of modern hermeneutics, German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) confronted the question of how modern, postmetaphysical human beings can cope with the ambivalence, contingency, and finitude that fundamentally characterize their lives. This book offers a reevaluation and fresh analysis of Dilthey's hermeneutics of life against the background of the development of philosophy during the past two centuries. Jos de Mul relates Dilthey's work to other philosophers who influenced or were influenced by him, including Kant, Schleiermacher, (...) Hegel, Comte, Mill, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Derrida. Weaving together systematic analysis and historical investigation, de Mul begins the book with an account of the horizon on which Dilthey developed his unfinished masterwork, Critique of Historical Reason. The author then elaborates a systematic reconstruction of Dilthey's ontology of life, relates the ontology to the work of other twentieth-century philosophers, and positions Dilthey's thought within current philosophical debate. (shrink)

In a famous article published in 1900, Cardinal Mercier drew up a philosophical balance sheet of the previous century. While still showing respect for modern developments, he severely criticized anything that strayed too far from the neo-Thomistic horizon. It is very characteristic that the first object of his criticism is De Bonald’s traditionalism. Mercier says that this type of philosophy is so greatly influenced by the impotence of reason that it hurls itself into the arms of faith. But, “an act (...) of faith cannot be the primordial act of human reason. An individual could not believe unless he first saw that it was reasonable to believe.”It is philosophy that must articulate this rationality. Philosophy must then be a real science; it must pursue rational insight into reality. Unfortunately, some do not believe that philosophy is a science. Instead, they think its task lies elsewhere; it must try to speak where science remains silent. In that case, it is no longer part of science, but belongs to the domain of imagination, faith or dreams. Mercier argues that whoever accepts this, supports Comte’s positivistic prejudice that only the observed positive fact can lie at the basis of a rational and scientific discussion.Mercier stands at the end of a century of unlimited optimism. From a military point of view, the century had been calm. The new sciences that had so intrigued Mercier were marking their first big successes. The century’s optimism is recognizable in the 1889 charter establishing the Thomistic Higher Institute of Philosophy, which Mercier served as president: “far from bringing dogmas in danger, scientific insights stimulate a wondrous growth in enlightened insight; for they both come from the same God, origin of both revelation and universe.” Mercier’s tonality lies not far distant from Renan’s L’avenir de la science, where he complains that there are people who choose bon ton, superstition and frivolity above meticulous research, but predicts that their success is ephemeral and that the time of rationality will dawn.The next century, however, took an unexpected turn. Who would have thought in 1900 that history, which had been set so firmly on the track of reason, would derail so terribly? No great philosopher predicted the coming catastrophes. The only warnings came from a few nineteenth-century traditionalist Cassandras who went to extremes in linking modernity and decay: Donoso Cortes, Joseph de Maistre and Louis De Bonald. Who predicted the arrival of enlightenment criticism in intellectual history? Who predicted that we would not see history becoming reasonable, but reason historical? Who could have predicted twentieth-century contextualism and its claim that reason is not the criterion of culture but only one element within culture indebted to an entire sociocultural context? All this can be found in De Bonald’s traditionalism that has proven paradoxically more up-to-date than the naïve trust in rationality found in Mercier and Renan.Yet, De Bonald did not intend to preach a form of irrationalism. His purpose was to accent reason’s dependence, and by extension, humankind’s intellectual solidarity: thought is impossible without language, language does not exist without a listener, there is no listener without education, there is no education without social life. Using this reasoning, De Bonald ultimately wants to prove that reason intrinsically refers to revelation, since in this chain, the first word cannot come from humankind.He supports this with an epistemological argument that contextualizes reason in a way that is almost contemporary: “A person has to think his word before saying it. Therefore, he cannot find without thinking, and cannot think without signs. He is compelled to have recourse to something other than the human.” Leuven’s variant of this traditionalism emphasizes that reason develops only in and through language, thus by being included in a community. By comparison, Mercier’s realistic concept of rationality sounds old-fashioned. It is traditionalism that best fits with the contemporary accent on reason’s historicity and culture-related status.The development of ethics also runs counter to Mercier’s expectations. There has been no growth in rationality but a growing insight into the historicity of reason. In the article already cited, Mercier criticizes Kant for not being sufficiently foundational, since he does not rely on a speculative-metaphysical foundation: “What kind of ethic is it that cannot be theoretically justified?” In our time, the roles are reversed. Many ethicists condemn Kant because he tries to find this foundation! How are we to understand this turn-about in ethics? (shrink)

Schwartz developed his Theory of Basic Human Values and corresponding instruments, the portrait values questionnaire (PVQ) and the Schwartz values survey (SVS), in order to measure personal values. He uses these instruments (in a slightly modified form) in conjunction with his Theory of Cultural Value Orientations to measure cultural or societal values. His theoretical work is also used in studying organizational values; however, none of these instruments seem suitable to compare personal and perceived organizational values. If the PVQ is (...) widely used to measure personal values, and we need commensurate measures of the person and organization for comparative analysis, then can we not minimally adjust the PVQ to measure organizational values? In this article we discuss the testing of one such adjusted PVQ used for gauging universities’ organizational values. We developed the PVQ-uni to measure university values as perceived by students. We collected data from sociology departments at two universities, one in Austria ( n = 133) and one Nigeria ( n = 156). We then tested the reliability and the validity of the new instrument. Based on the data collected, we found that the PVQ-uni is a reliable and valid instrument; however, further refinements are needed for the instrument to be used successfully in Africa. (shrink)

Resumen. La consideración de una nueva visión para sustituir y revisar las concepciones humanasen relación con el ambiente, plantea necesariamente mantener una misión educativa, dirigiendo laatención al complejo mundo natural, porque bajo esta perspectiva, educar representa una formaviable entre la realidad y el medio, condición indispensable para replantear la promoción de lasactividades ecológicas mediante el panorama gerencial, bajo el rol que desempeña el gerente deaula, para obtener cambios en el futuro posicionamiento humano en relación con la naturaleza. Elestudio tiene como (...) objetivo describir el rol gerencial del docente para la promoción de lasactividades ecológicas en la educación primaria. Tomando como caso el Colegio Jorbalán y EscuelaBásica San José, San Cristóbal, República Bolivariana de Venezuela. El estudio se fundamentó en laactividad promovida por el docente en cuanto a la participación ciudadana y el trabajo colaborativo,así mismo, la gerencia estratégica con referencia a la planificación, organización y dirección deactividades ecológicas. La investigación presentada es de nivel descriptivo, de campo, proyectofactible. Los resultados obtenidos indicaron, que los docentes promueven actividades departicipación ciudadana sobre acciones proambientales y valores ambientales; argumento del cualdiscreparon estudiantes y padres; también se detectaron deficiencias en el desarrollo de la gerenciaestratégica, concluyendo que el trabajo es importante porque hay necesidad de diseñar técnicas parala promoción de actividades ecológicas. Recomendando a los docentes como protagonistasmotivacionales, el ejercicio de los principios gerenciales con mayor firmeza a fin de mejorar lacalidad de vida.Palabras claves. Gerente de aula, promoción actividades ecológicas. Considering a new vision to replace and check the human conceptions in relation to theenvironment, necessarily arises maintain an educational mission, drawing attention to the complexnatural world, because from this perspective, education is a viable way between reality and theenvironment , which is essential to reconsider the promotion of environmental activities bymanagement scenario, in the role played by the manager class, for change in the future positioning inrelation to human nature. The study aimed to describe the managerial role of teachers in thepromotion of environmental activities in primary education. Case: Jorbalán College ElementarySchool and San Jose, San Cristobal, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The same was based onthe activity promoted by the teacher in terms of citizen participation and collaborative work, inaddition, management refers to strategic planning, organization and management of environmentalactivities. The research presented is descriptive level, field, and project feasible. Resultsindicated that teachers promote civic engagement activities on eco-friendly actions andenvironmental values; argument which students and parents disagreed, also identified shortcomingsin the development of strategic management, concluding that there is need to develop techniques forpromoting of environmental activities. It is recommended to teachers asprotagonists motivational exercise management principles more firmly to improve the quality of life.Keywords. Classroom manager, promoting environmental activities. (shrink)

The present article focuses on American and European personalism during the early part of the twentieth century . The immediate predecessor of the personalist movement as such was the philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze who inspired two of his students, Methodist Borden Parker Bowne and Rudolf Eucken. In France, in the meantime, Charles Renouvier published his Le personnalisme in 1903, while Emmanuel Mounier later presented personalism as a new political philosophy under the influence Alexandre Marc’s comments on Nicolai Hartmann’s Ethik. Mounier’s (...) Manifeste au service du personnalisme develops a dialectical critique on both liberal bourgeois individualism and all forms of collectivism, all, in his opinion, ‘inverted theocracies’ with shared dehumanizing tendencies. As alternative, it was necessary for personalism to become the leading spiritual and philosophical guide in order to Refaire la Renaissance . As a matter of fact, Jacques Maritain’s Humanisme intégral might justly be considered a first attempt to describe the nature of a new civilization in any detail. Maritain is more explicit on the Christian face of this new humanism, while refuting any kind of mancentred humanism. Mounier’s and Maritain’s personalist ideas together with Max Scheler’s non-formal ethics of value and his Aktlehre had a considerable influence on Louis Janssens. In Personne et société he not only criticizes several contemporary European ideologies in line with Mounier, but he also accepts that persons can only be really known by co-operation, in line with Scheler’s idea of inter-subjectivity and Aquinas’ idea of the social nature of the human being. Following Maritain, Janssens distinguishes between the human being as individual and the human person. Individuality contains a material component, characterized by its concrete position in space and time, while the person and his/her spiritual component facilitate a movement away from the self towards others in freedom and love. The person is not only understood as the highest value, he/she is able to control the hierarchy of values by his/her ordo amoris, a flexible undertaking influenced by the love of others in which love opens each person for growth towards higher values. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a design tool, the positioning cards that we have developed, validated, and used in different projects. These cards are built to allow CI4CG and Participatory Design researchers to discuss the political alignment of design projects, in iterative processes of design involving people in the definition of the technological features to be implemented. The background of the cards is the conceptualization of contemporary participatory design as public design, engaging with societally relevant phenomena outside the traditional environment (...) of the workplace. To engage with such an extended dimension of participatory design, we frame our contribution in the contemporary form of capitalism, stressing how contemporary capitalism dispossess the wealth created by social production. In this context, we argue, CI4CG designers need to engage deeply with the theoretical implications of their work. To support this effort, we built the cards combining a political perspective oriented toward nourishing the common—the ensemble of the material and symbolic elements tieing together human beings—with the “affect turn” in the social sciences—therefore including affective dimensions like joy, sadness, and desire in the design of CI4CG technologies. In the final part of the article we discuss how we have used the cards in four different projects. (shrink)

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in (...) recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greater capacity take greater responsibility but remain inclusive and cognizant of different voices and experiences. Focussing on business ethics in connection to the grand challenge of environmental emergencies, Steffen Böhm introduces the deceptively simple yet radical position that business is nature, and nature is business. His quick but profound side-step from arguments against human–nature dualism to an ontological undoing of the business–nature dichotomy should have all business ethics scholars rethinking their “business and society” assumptions. Also, singularly concerned with the climate emergency, Boudewijn de Bruin posits a scenario where, 40 years from now, our field will be evaluated by its ability to have helped humanity emerge from this emergency. He contends that Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell illustrates how human rights take centre stage in climate change litigation, and how business ethics enters the courtroom. From a consumer ethics perspective, Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Louise Hassan argue that ecologically sustainable and socially just marketplace systems demand cultural change, a reconsideration of future interpretations of “consumer society”, a challenge to the dominant “growth logic” and stimulation of alternative ways to address our consumption needs. Still concerned with global issues, but turning attention to social inequalities, Nelarine Cornelius links the capability approach to global and corporate governance, arguing that CA will continue to lie at the foundation of human development policy, and, increasingly, CSR and corporate governance. Continuing debate on the grand challenges associated with justice and equality, Laurence Romani identifies a significant shift in the centrality of business ethics in debates on managing differences, positing that dialogue between diversity management and international management can ground future debate in business ethics. Finally, the essay concludes with a commentary by Charlotte Karam and Michelle Greenwood on the possibilities of feminist-inspired theories, methods, and positionality for many spheres of business ethics, not least stakeholder theory, to broaden and deepen its capacity for nuance, responsiveness, and transformation. In the words of our commentators, grand challenges must be addressed urgently, and the Journal of Business Ethics should be at the forefront of tackling them. (shrink)

Photo ID 279661800 © Sidewaypics|Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT Decolonization is complex, vast, and the subject of an ongoing academic debate. While the many efforts to decolonize or dismantle the vestiges of colonialism that remain are laudable, they can also reinforce what they seek to end. For decolonization to be impactful, it must be done with epistemic and cultural humility, requiring decolonial scholars, project leaders, and well-meaning people to be more sensitive to those impacted by colonization and not regularly included in the discourse. (...) INTRODUCTION Decolonization is complex. To successfully achieve decolonization, projects should incorporate the voices of those subjugated or silenced. Including such voices requires sincerely exploring who has been affected by colonialism or neocolonialism and how, as well as cultural sensitivity. In its basic use, decolonization refers to countries under colonial rule gaining independence or freedom from forms of subjugation. Additionally, scholars use the term to refer to efforts to dismantle neocolonialism and vestiges of colonialism. The process includes de-silencing subjugated voices.[1] I use decolonization in the latter way to refer to countries with technical independence. While arguably colonization ended formally with independence from colonizing powers, neocolonialism is the indirect, informal, and sometimes subtle control of the people, their economy, and political life despite formal independence from colonizing authorities. I conceptualize neocolonialism as a system that involves direct and involuntary control of another’s political, economic, or social life, impacting their worldview and ways of encountering the world. Decolonization may target actions, places, or systems like health care or AI to overcome the ills of colonialism and neocolonialism. It also may target knowledge and require rethinking how people develop their knowledge base. For example, if people grew up seeing an outside colonizer as superior, they would need to change their knowledge of superiority. Decolonization may target power, for example, changing who owns and distributes COVID-19 vaccines and who distributors exclude in the distribution of vaccines. Decolonization could require looking at those disempowered in the distribution process. Additionally, decolonization may target autonomy of persons by freeing people, ensuring human and individual rights, and respecting cultural traditions. Decolonization projects that try to de-silence by including the voices of those affected by colonialism and neocolonialism must examine inclusiveness in the context of the culture of the subrogated individuals. Examples of decolonization projects include making datasets inclusive of diverse peoples and places, returning to traditional food and eating practices, making sure hospitals in developing countries are led by locals and respectful of cultural traditions, returning unethically obtained artefacts or objects. Another project would be laying the groundwork for equality in formerly colonized countries to ensure that business ownership, education, and financial success will flow fairly to those previously victimized by colonization. Summarily, there are many strategies for decolonizing. However, it is worth asking whether the strategies have risks that undermine the goal of decolonization. I. Understanding Decolonization Discourses Many fields, from AI to politics, economics, health care, aviation, and academia, discuss decolonization. The content of the discourse on decolonization depends on the region and field discussing it. Rather than just reporting on decolonization, the discussions may be calls to action. For example, decolonization discourses reflect activism for cognitive justice, such as equal consideration of Indian or African knowledge systems in global health discourses.[2] In politics and political science, some scholars frame decolonization as an anti-western, anti-colonial movement by Africans to emancipate Africa/ns from subjugation or shift the continent to postcolonialism and post-neo-colonialism. This framing walls off non-African participants and may undermine their capacity to benefit the conversation.[3] There are other political scientists who actively support decolonization and see it as a field of activism in support of anyone and countries where colonization harmed people and development.[4] The point is that two ways of conceptualizing decolonization in politics and political science are discernible. One conceptualization is less inclusive since it alienates scholars and professionals from Western, high-income, or developed countries. The other is more inclusive. In humanitarian studies, including philosophy, some decolonization articles and conversations are efforts to end the destructive force of colonization. They focus on either the form, such as ecocide, genocide, and many others, or the geographic location, such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.[5] Finally, the feelings one brings into this conversation can adversely impact how one engages in them and who they listen to or are willing to hear from. For example, anger, rage, bitterness, and hatred are emotions that are not uncommon in spaces of decolonization conversations. Decolonization conversations that originate from a place of negativity risk deepening the psychological state of victimhood and prevent people from disrupting constructively or critically engaging in the conversation.[6] II. Understanding Decolonization Strategies Decolonization strategies mainly aim to de-silence victims of domination or subjugation. People have proposed many strategies for decolonizing. These strategies may be informed by what the target is for decolonization. Decolonization can target power relations in global health. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health organizations noted the power imbalance in vaccine distribution. Decolonization could involve de-silencing those affected by neocolonialism to bring about a more balanced distribution of power and a more fair distribution of the vaccine. By analyzing who was adversely impacted by the distribution and who ought to wield power, those engaged in decolonizing advocated for positive change and equitable power relations. Equally, when being is the target of decolonization, the language of unlearning or relearning and mental decolonization take centre stage in the decolonization discourse. For example, the quest to decolonize colonized minds aims to demythologize African inferiority and Western superiority. Demythologizing African inferiority enables those engaged in the decolonization discourse to cultivate and foster African agency.[7] Finally, when knowledge production is the target of decolonization, scholars use inclusion and cognitive justice. For example, they try to alter the knowledge that underlies global health ethics.[8] “[D]decolonizing researchers aim to respectfully understand and integrate theory from Other(ed) perspectives, while also critically examining the underlying assumptions that inform their Western research framework.”[9] One common strategy that scholars use in decolonization is inclusion. It is worth asking, does including people who have been subrogated foster decolonization? Whether that is effective depends on whether included people are more heard or whether the strategies to include them create new forms of silencing. III. Inclusion and the Quest to Decolonize Evaluating how effective inclusion is in the quest to de-silence subjugated voices is important. First, inclusive strategies are not neutral. They are epistemically situated. This situatedness constrains meaning-making in different ways: how and what questions are asked, how social roles are constructed, organized or assigned, and who is admitted to the room where these conversations occur.[10] Inclusion strategies may reinforce (unchallenged) assumptions. For example, to address prejudices and stereotypes in global health images, Arsenii Alenichev and his colleagues[11] successfully inverted “one stereotypical global health image” by prompting a generative AI to produce “an image of a traditional Indian or African healer healing a White Child.” Although there were some problems with the image of the White child, this innovation is a significant, useful effort to de-embed or strip global health images of problematic pictures that mythologize White superiority and Black inferiority. Yet it is possible that using categories like traditional Indian or African reinforces unchallenged assumptions, raising key questions regarding how language and words create new stereotypes. It is common to define traditional as non-conventional, unorthodox, and informal. Yet studies continue to reveal that non-scientifically appraised healing approaches in India or Africa are not only effective but also real, meaningful, fundamental, and primary care-seeking behaviours in many communities in these regions.[12] Suppose inclusive strategies are not un-situated. These conversations may be had within the structures, language, and spaces built by or connected to colonialism. The spaces, language, places, and structures in which these conversations occur can limit who can participate and how they participate. Importantly, some conditions are not conducive to participation as equals. The allocated time for the discussion could also constrain how individuals express themselves. It is unclear who is ultimately heard. Furthermore, epistemic situatedness of inclusion can impact decolonization conversations when participants are beneficiaries of, products of, and trained by structures and systems they seek to dismantle. To enhance the decolonization project and its goals, a pressing task is to unveil and question how the circumstances may inhibit activism. If the vestiges of colonialism continue to structure the decolonization discourse invisibly, the vestiges may undermine decolonization. For example, a public health discussion that includes white Western doctors and Western pharmaceutical executives in Africa may have many local Africans at the table but could still effectively devalue their input based on built-in assumptions and biases that are vestiges of colonialism. Second, exclusion and inclusion are also not binary. Individuals may experience exclusion, even while included (the phenomenon called internal exclusion). In other words, inclusion can fail to be substantial or become a means of enhancing optics, “a way of (un)consciously weakening the radical claims being pursued.”[13] For example, in South Africa, many institutions have made significant efforts to diversify their faculties due to the promulgation of the Employment Equity Act 55.[14] The act requires South African institutions to implement employment equity that redresses the history of harmful discrimination in the country. The act further requires transforming departments and institutional administrations. Although many recognize and support the need to transform departments in South Africa, the rhetoric of transformation departs sharply from the lived experiences.[15] This misalignment between the plan and practice is evident in the underrepresentation of black people and females in senior management teams, professorships in many universities and health departments, and positions of power in some South African institutions. Those selected in the transformation of the departments have also complained of being overworked. The burden of extra work undermines their ability to develop agency and voice in the space they now occupy or fulfil key requirements that have implications for their career trajectory.[16] This is called the minority tax. Notably, "the minority tax… is the burden of extra responsibilities [placed] on faculty of colour to achieve diversity and inclusion and contributes to attrition and impedes academic promotion."[17] One challenge for decolonializing projects will be for decolonial scholars and those selected for decolonization objectives to have the humility to decline invitations, requests, roles, and platforms for which they are either unqualified or lack the capacity to fulfil. At its heart, decolonization strategies must empower those included rather than weaken them. Finally, inclusion can lead to a phenomenon known as elite capture.[18] Elite capture occurs when socially advantaged individuals in a group monopolize or exploit activism to their own benefit at the expense of the larger, struggling group. Elite capture weakens decolonization efforts from within, revealing that those likely to benefit from global inclusive efforts are those who fulfil globally constructed standards, those “already present in the room.” There is no better strategy to weaken decolonial movements than weakening the project from within by strategically positioning individuals who share physical properties with the victims of exclusion and silencing but intellectually, behaviourally, psychologically, and emotionally share more common ground with the colonizer. Such insiders may be unaware they are furthering neocolonial conditions rather than decolonizing. In relation to decolonization, particularly in global health, elite capture reveals that those whose voices are loudest in the room are not necessarily those more impacted by colonialism. They may benefit more from reinforcing colonialism. Opportunism weakens meaningful activism from within, preventing good initiatives and strategies from having their intended impact or taking substantive root.[19] This paper cannot do justice to elite capture, but it is worth noting its negative impacts. IV. Improving the Impact of Decolonization To end neo-colonialism, it is important to understand how it manifests and what to do at each level. Beyond the academic discourse, many tangible efforts exist to decolonize through de-silencing. Examples of these efforts include the ME2 movement that seeks to centre the concerns and experiences of sexually abused or harassed victims in the public discourse. At the funding level, many grant-awarding agencies like Wellcome Trust have dedicated huge budgets to studies that help them understand how they may have perpetrated colonialism or neocolonialism and what they can do differently going forward.[20] In South Africa, promulgating the Employment Equity Act 55 was a tangible attempt to entrench decolonization concerns in a country's regulatory framework. Yet, these decolonization efforts could fail to be substantive if they do not reflect cultural sensitivity. Two key components of cultural sensitivity are worth highlighting here: epistemic and cultural humility. Epistemic humility is an intellectual virtue described as knowing one’s limitations and the limitations of the learning methods employed. At its simplest, it is the ability to admit when one is wrong. Cultural humility includes genuine attempts to learn about and embrace other cultures. Epistemic and cultural humility are signs of academic excellence and strength. Epistemic and cultural humility seriously acknowledge how the state of our knowledge, cognitive limitations, experiences, and backgrounds, while constraining us, also invite us to listen, learn, grow, and change. The limitations-owing account of epistemic and cultural humility suggests that “a person who is aware of her cognitive limitations and owns them is much better positioned to achieve such epistemic goods as true beliefs and understanding than someone who… simply has insight into the epistemic status of her beliefs.”[21] Epistemic and cultural humility may help prevent decolonization projects that unintentionally reinforce what they seek to dismantle. Epistemic humility calls on decolonizers to defer tasks for which they are not qualified to suitably qualified persons. Beyond this, humility supports brave scholarship that imagines and reimagines how featuring the same voices, faces, and perspectives possibly introduces new forms of domination or silencing. Cultural knowledge can lead to a more intentional way of seeking out the right people or a more diverse group than those frequently featured in decolonization conversations. This would give others more opportunities to navigate these spaces and should do so in ways that are familiar to them. One ought to be more sensitive to those who would ordinarily not be included in these conversations. Unless we radically and boldly reimagine these discussions, we risk alienating those most negatively impacted by neocolonialism. CONCLUSION Decolonization conversations are complex and the subject of academic debate. The strategies employed to decolonize can harm or help the victims of neo-colonialism. Inclusion of previously silenced individuals may not be enough to overcome the vestiges of colonialism, leading to a false inclusion, where those included feel excluded or contribute in ways reflecting their own biases and circumstances. Inclusion of an elite or people who do not truly represent the subjugated can lead to elite capture. For decolonization strategies to be impactful, for example, in the context of global health, project leaders and participants must engage in conversations employing epistemic and cultural humility. In many ways, epistemic and cultural humility can help us demythologize our assumptions of any cultural superiority or cognitive authority, allowing for diverse voices, cultures, and perspectives to emerge without domination. - [1] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [2] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [3] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh 2023. Is decolonisation Africanisation? The politics of belonging in the truly African university. Social Dynamics, 1-20. [4] Rianna Oelofsen 2015. Decolonisation of the African mind and intellectual landscape. Phronimon, 16, 130-146. [5] Caesar Atuire & Olivia Rutazibwa. 2021. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization. An African Reading of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Stakes of Decolonization [Online]. Available from: https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/african-reading-covid-19-pandemic-and-stakes-decolonization [Accessed July 29, 2021 2021]. [6] Pedro Alexis Tabensky 2008. The Postcolonial Heart of African Philosophy. South African Journal of Philosophy, 27, 285-295. [7] Nicholas M. Creary 2012. African Intellectuals and Decolonization, Ohio, Ohio University Press. [8] Bridget Pratt & Jantina De Vries 2023. Where is knowledge from the Global South? An account of epistemic justice for a global bioethics. Journal of Medical Ethics, medethics-2022-108291. [9] Vivetha Thambinathan & Elizabeth Anne Kinsella 2021. Decolonizing Methodologies in Qualitative Research: Creating Spaces for Transformative Praxis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 16094069211014766. [10] Abimbola Seye 2023. Knowledge from the global South is in the global South. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49, 337. [11] A. Alenichev, P. Kingori & K. P. Grietens 2023. Reflections before the storm: the AI reproduction of biased imagery in global health visuals. Lancet Glob Health. [12] Jonathan K. Burns & Andrew Tomita 2015. Traditional and religious healers in the pathway to care for people with mental disorders in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50, 867-877. [13] Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnjoh & Cornelius Ewuoso 2023. What type of inclusion does epistemic injustice require? Journal of Medical Ethics, jme-2023-109091. [14] 1998. Employment Equity Act. In: GOVERNMENT, S. A. (ed.) 19370. [15] Dina Zoe Belluigi & Gladman Thondhlana 2019. ‘Why mouth all the pieties?’ Black and women academics’ revelations about discourses of ‘transformation’ at an historically white South African university. Higher Education, 78, 947-963. [16] Juliet Ramohai & Khomotso Marumo 2016. Women in Senior Positions in South African Higher Education: A Reflection on Voice and Agency. 231, 135-157. [17] J. Trejo 2020. The burden of service for faculty of color to achieve diversity and inclusion: the minority tax. Mol Biol Cell, 31, 2752-2754. [18] Olufemi Taiwo 2020. Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference. The Philosopher, 108, 7. [19] Margarita Kurbatova & Elena Kagan 2016. Opportunism of University Lecturers As a Way to Adaptate the External Control Activities Strengthening. Journal of Institutional Studies, 8, 116-136. [20] Jeremy Farrar. 2022. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme. An update on Wellcome's anti-racist programme [Online]. Available from: https://wellcome.org/news/update-wellcomes-anti-racism-programme [Accessed August 10, 2022 2022]. [21] Katherine Dormandy 2018. Does Epistemic Humility Threaten Religious Beliefs? Journal of Psychology and Theology, 46, 292-304. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:482 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY G. E. Michalson, Jr. TheHistoricalDimensions ofaRattonalFaith. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1977. Pp. 222. $8.65. The primary intentionof this work is to argue that historical or ecclesiastical religion plays a vital role in Kant's religious thought, because it is necessary to provide a sensible content for the purely formal doctrine of Kant's "moral" religion. But Michalson resists that this strategy cannot succeed, because of (...) the technical requirements of Kant's eplstmology, and that we must ultimately encounter an "impasse" in Kant's thought on history and religion (pp. 77, 134, 169). This is an area of Kant's thought that has not until recently received the attention it deserves. A careful consideration of all the related issued helps one to recognize, from perhaps the most beneficial standpoint, how all the various parts of Kant's philosophical scheme fit together. Michalson quite rightly maintains that we must remain within the epistemological framework Kant has established for the Critical Philosophy. But unfortunately he recognizes only the negative aspects of this framework. What he chooses to call "Kant's principle of human limitations" (mentioned thirtynine times) is the essential element in his interpretation. Secondly, Michalson is unwilling to follow the lead of other commentators (e.g., Michel Despland and Ylrmiahu Yovel) in broadening the context still further in order to take into account the full scope of Kant's philosophical project. These two defects persist throughout Michalson's analysis, and ultimately they prevent any fruitful conclusions. The approach employed, in its most simple form, ~sto point out that historical religion belongs to the phenomenal order and that morality (as the basis for Kant's technical rehgious position) belongs to the noumenal order. Kant's recognition of the need to bridge this gap is dealt with in terms of the "schematism of analogy" (pp. 95, 112-13) mentioned in Religion withinthe Ltmits ofReasonAlone. Michalson provides an interpretation of the schematism m Chapter 3 and concludes that "Kant's Religion is not altogether consistent with certain basic teachings of the critical philosophy" (p. 132). His attempt to deal with this problem carries him into a discussion of teleology and the highest good (Chapter 4), and it is only in this concluding chapter that his various interpretive errors crystallze and produce their Inevitable consequences. Rather than emphasizing the negative aspects of Kant's conception of man, Despland offers Kant's positive perspective on man and his destiny----drawing, for example, on the Anthropologyfrom a PragmaticPoint of View. Employing equally good judgment, Yovel provides an interpretation of the highest good which shows it as the culmination (in the indefinite future) of the concrete process through which man's social, political, educational, and religious development takes place. These perspectives permit the historical dimension (both religious and secular) to be gradually transformed by the imposition of moral designs--as men ~lowly and painfully assume responsibility for directing the blind laws of nature into patterns that serve moral ends. Such commentators help us to see more clearly what Kant was attempting to achieve and how the elements of his total philosophical scheme are to be understood as interconnected. Michalson, on the other hand, has only his impasse to offer us. Because history is phenomenal and religion (as morality) is noumenal, he maintainsthat no bridge is possible between the two realms. But this is simply a failure to recognize Kant's strategy. For Kant is very careful to restrict knowledge (in the strict sense) to the phenomenal order. But he is equally clear in asserting that it is legitimate (indeed, necessary) to postulate those conditions which alone make it possible for us to act in conformity with the moral law. Therefore, we must postulate not only God and immortality but the possibility of a worldly order which conforms both to the laws of nature and to the moral law. And for Kant these postulates have the full strength of rational truths, m that--like the postulates of mathematics -reason cannot reject them. Interpreting Kant's phenomenon-noumenon distinction strictly (but misapplying it), Michalson insists that such a projected ideal state of the world is inconsistent with Kant's epistemological commitment. For such... (shrink)

Resumo Neste trabalho procura-se, de forma introdutória, uma via de acesso para a compreensão da condição humana a partir da leitura crítica ao iluminismo ocidental realizada por Marx, Nietzsche e Freud. Para tanto, explora-se inicialmente o problema da emergência da subjetividade iluminista no contexto da cultura grega como fenômeno agonístico e indica-se o nascimento da tradição iluminista a partir das obras de Hesíodo e Ésquilo. Em seguida, discute-se a posição da modernidade ilustrada desde a perspectiva kantiana. Desde então, elabora-se a (...) crítica à concepção iluminista a partir das ideias nucleares de Marx, Nietzsche e Freud. Nesta crítica destaca-se o papel central das relações de produção econômicas, da vontade de poder e dos instintos na determinação e na compreensão da subjetividade humana. O legado comum dessas três filosofias magnas aponta para o desmantelamento da subjetividade iluminista e, assim, para uma compreensão da condição humana, situada no horizonte de uma nova racionalidade, na qual a razão deixa de ocupar o lugar principal. Palavras-chave : condição humana, Iluminismo, inconsciente. instintos, razão, vontade de poderThis paper searches for, in an introductory way, a path toward understanding the human condition from critical reading of the Western Enlightenment presented by Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. For this purpose, the paper initially explores the problem of emergence of Enlightenment subjectivity in the context of Greek culture as an agonistic phenomenon and indicates the birth of the Enlightenment tradition from the works of Hesiod and Aeschylus. Then the position of modernity illustrated from the Kantian perspective is discussed. After that, the paper elaborates a critique of the Enlightenment conception departing from the core ideas of Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. This critique highlights the central role of economic relations of production, the will to power and instincts in determining and understanding of human subjectivity. The common heritage of these three magna philosophies points to the dismantlement of Enlightenment subjectivity and thus to an understanding of the human condition, situated on the horizon of a new rationality, in which reason ceases to occupy main place. Keywords : Enlightenment, human condition, instinct, reason, unconscious. will to power. (shrink)

The title of this work may seem to beg an important question, since it rests on the assumption that Diderot has a 'concept of physical energy'. Indeed the aim of the study is, in part, to assemble evidence in support of the acte de foi implicit in its title. I am using 'physical energy' in a loose sense, as a convenient term to denote 'what matter can do' as distinct from 'what matter is made of'. Hence it may be taken (...) as broadly synonymous with 'power' or 'force', encompassing both active and potential forms, and thus corresponding to a combination of the fourth and fifth senses identified by the Oxford English Dictionary: 4. Power actively and efficiently displayed or exerted. 5. Power not necessarily manifested in action; ability or capacity to produce an effect. Modern subatomic physics, of course, recognises no such distinction between 'being' and 'doing'; at a fundamental level, matter-as-substance and matter-as-energy are interchangeable (and, as I shall argue towards the end of the study, Diderot himself comes close to a similar position). Nevertheless, the division is both justifiable and useful within the context of eighteenth-century philosophies of nature. For, as many scholars have pointed out, the trend towards nature as an integrated, active phenomenon, in place of the cartesian view of passive tendue only incidentally endowed with motion, was crucial to the development of scientific thought in the mid-eighteenth century. Debate and development on such issues as Newtonian attraction, inertia, electricity and magnetism, chemical reactions, not only contributed directly to the advancement of physics and chemistry, but also (like cartesian mechanism) impinged upon the perennial biological questions, themselves being investigated from a new and exciting angle. As a philosopher rather than a practising scientist, Diderot was ideally placed to draw freely and creatively on all these areas, and his speculations on what we might call 'the nature of nature' are highly characteristic of the new approach. He comes increasingly to discuss and define natural phenomena (organic and inorganic alike) from the point of view of nature's powers - in the spirit of Renaissance naturalism, but from the perspective of up-to-date scientific findings. It is in this sense that I refer to a 'concept of physical energy'. Given the organic quality of Diderot's thought, it is not surprising to find the idea of energy recurring in other areas of his works. If man is composed of matter - active matter - than all human activity, be it moral, political, aesthetic, becomes capable of interpretation in terms of energy. I share Chouillet's conviction that this is a crucial aspect of Diderot's overall philosophy, which deserves to be more widely recognised and more fully understood. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Maturana?Hans Ulrich GumbrechtWhy would a German scholar specializing in pedagogical thought travel thousands of miles to Santiago de Chile for an interview with a aging scientist who, it seems, has created for himself a solid reputation in the field of "biology of vision" without being hailed by his peers as a path-breaking innovator? In the German intellectual context, the answer to this question could be as laconic as (...) it would be superfluous: it consists in a deictic reference to the name and, implicitly, to the work of Niklas Luhmann. American readers, in contrast, may need some introductory explanation in order to understand the epistemological triangle between contemporary pedagogical thought, Maturana's biology, and Luhmann's philosophy—and, above all, in order to assess and even to appreciate its intellectual potential.Niklas Luhmann is certainly difficult to read, at least for starters, and to those who met him during his lifetime he invariably appeared to be a dead-serious person. But today, more than five years after Luhmann's death, we begin to discover traces of a sometimes uncanny irony—one may want to call it a "practical irony"—in his writing. One of the discursive gestures that characterized Luhmann's texts were references to academic authors who nobody had ever heard of (let alone read), presented with the same seriousness and with the same attitude of intellectual reverence that we normally reserve for the classics: for example, to the logician Gotthart Guenter, the philosopher Fritz Heider, the biologist Humberto Maturana, or the mathematician George Spencer Brown. There is no doubt that, in each case, a specific concept or a specific thought developed by one of these authors had turned out to be truly important within Luhmann's own work, and yet the "effects of authority" that his very serious quotes produced were nothing short of hilarious. For Luhmann's readers, with that self-flagellating attitude in which we academics so like to indulge, quite regularly attributed the experience that they had never heard of those seeming "authorities" to their own lack of intellectual cosmopolitanism. This is why, until the present day, some departments of sociology or philosophy in Germany have Spencer Brown or Guenter specialists on their payrolls, and this also explains why some of those authors have had moments of intense reception [End Page 22] in the world of the humanities and social sciences at German universities. Among them, Humberto Maturana, together with his co-author the late Francisco Varela, seem to be the exception confirming the rule that none of those Luhmann references had the intellectual power to survive Luhmann himself.Now why should one trust Luhmann's trust in Maturana? The debate about the importance of Luhmann's thought (he labeled it a "theory of social systems") in the larger context of contemporary Western philosophy has barely begun to become serious, and we are certainly many years away from a definitive consensual evaluation. But there are two—very different—features about Luhmann's work that make him fascinating at first glance. One lies in the simple fact that, probably, no other thinker since Hegel has managed to develop a restrained set of basic concepts and premises into a systematically coherent philosophical edifice of similar proportions. In this sense, entering the dimension of Luhmann's thought offers the patient reader a possibility to view many familiar positions and questions from sometimes radically different innovative angles. Less obvious, however, and more intriguing is Luhmann's intellectual bet to develop his systemic thought under strict avoidance of notions such as "subject," "subjecthood," or "agency." It was this very bet (about whose existential and political motivations he only left some rather vague remarks) that explains Luhmann's fascination for much theoretical thinking emerging from biological research, above all for Humberto Maturana's work. For from a biological perspective, subjecthood and agency are highly marginal attributes in the realm of living organisms. I believe that this (almost hidden) component in Luhmann's thinking can explain the particularly strong affinity of contemporary pedagogical thought in Germany with his work. Of course, such an affinity will not necessarily lead to a pedagogical theory that, in orthodox reliance on Luhmann, will... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that arguments for and against cloning fail to make their case because of one or both of the following reasons: 1) they take for granted customary beliefs and assumptions that are far from being unquestionable; 2) they tend to ignore the context in which human cloning is developed. I will analyze some of the assumptions underlying the main arguments that have been offered for and against cloning. Once these assumptions are critically (...) analyzed, arguments both rejecting and supporting human cloning seem to lose weight. I will first briefly present the main arguments that have been proposed against cloning and I will argue that they fail to establish their case. In the next section I will evaluate some of the positive arguments that have been offered supporting such technology. This analysis will show that the case for cloning also fails. Finally, I will maintain that because critics and especially supporters of this technology neglect the context in which human cloning is developed and might be implemented, their arguments are far from compelling. (shrink)

Violence suffered by children is a violation of human rights and a global health problem. Children with disabilities are especially vulnerable to violence in the school environment, which has a negative impact on their well-being and health. Students with disabilities educated in special schools have, in addition, more reduced experiences of interaction that may reduce both their opportunities for learning and for building protective social networks of support. This study analyses the transference of evidence-based actions to prevent violence in (...) schools – the dialogic model of prevention and resolution of conflicts (DMPRC) – in the context of a special school, and its impact on the reduction of violence, the creation of egalitarian relationships, and the prevention of bullying. A case study with a communicative approach was conducted including in-depth interviews and communicative focus groups with the diverse participants to analyze the process of transformation carried out in the school and the main actions that give students a voice in the management and creation of egalitarian non-violent relationships. The results show that the inclusion of the students’ voices in the resolution and prevention of conflicts reduces violence, empowers special education students, strengthens friendship relationships, caring behavior, and active positioning among the community. The positive impact of the transference of the DMPRC to special schools contributes to students’ well-being and healthy development by offering safe and protective educational spaces and quality emotional education, also contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals related to the elimination of all forms of violence in childhood. (shrink)

With his doctrine of the “complete irresponsibility of man,” Nietzsche in different ways complicates the opposition between responsibility and irresponsibility. This article traces the different and conflicting senses of irresponsibility throughout Nietzsche’s development. First, the doctrine is shown to build on Nietzsche’s early study of Heraclitus (section I), whom Nietzsche admired for expounding and embodying a radical “innocence” that was both responsible and irresponsible in different senses. When presented as “philosophical conviction” in Human, All too Human, Nietzsche (...) paradoxically speculates about the doctrine’s incorporation out of a sense of responsibility for the future of mankind (section II). Section III shows how Nietzsche’s later writings evince an increasing awareness of this paradox by explicitly positing complete irresponsibility as his own redemptive doctrine in Twilight of the Idols. After 1881, he has come to affirm a new notion of responsibility and criticizes a weak sense of irresponsibility as the abdication of one’s task. I end by discussing the relation of these different senses of irresponsibility, and argue that the fact that Nietzsche’s texts often deliberately complicate rather than clarify such distinctions is an important reflection of how he textually takes responsibility for “complete irresponsibility” (section IV). (shrink)

Os pressupostos teóricos de Ilya Prigogine e a epistemologia crítica – um diálogo de convergências? Resumo: Ter clareza das raízes epistemológicas dos referenciais teóricos utilizados nas pesquisas científicas é primordial para que essas investigações tenham veracidade. Entretanto, alguns autores, por diversos motivos, não explicitam tais informações em suas obras. Surge então a necessidade de se saber onde Ilya Prigogine - físico-químico e filósofo que refletiu sobre a função do tempo, do conhecimento e das leis fundamentais que governam o universo - (...) está epistemologicamente posicionado. Desta forma, a presente investigação buscou analisar, comparar e conectar as perspectivas da epistemologia crítica, uma das mais importantes vertentes da filosofia contemporânea, com as proposições teóricas de Prigogine, buscando encontrar conexões entre elas. Desta pesquisa exploratória de cunho bibliográfico, emergiram da análise de conteúdo as seguintes categorias: conhecimento, história, natureza, utilização e ciências exatas x humanas. Subsidiados pelas discussões aqui construídas, conseguimos constatar que existem intensas convergências entre a epistemologia crítica e a obra de Prigogine. Com isso, confirmamos que o entrelaçamento entre Prigogine e a epistemologia crítica é forte o suficiente para posicioná-lo como epistemólogo com vertente crítica. O arcabouço teórico aqui desenvolvido pode ser utilizado para justificar a utilização das ideias prigoginianas em trabalhos de orientação progressista e também abre espaço para novas pesquisas sobre o posicionamento epistemológico de Prigogine. Palavras-chave: Progressismo; Teoria Crítica; Relações histórico-sociais; Ciência; Natureza. Ilya Prigogine's theoretical assumptions and critical epistemology - a convergence dialogue? Abstract: Having clarity on the epistemological roots of the theoretical frameworks used in scientific research is paramount for these investigations to be true. However, some authors, for various reasons, do not explain the information in their works. The need then arises to know where Ilya Prigogine - physicist-chemist and philosopher who reflected on a function of time, knowledge and the fundamental principles that govern the universe - is epistemologically positioned. In this way, the present research sought to analyze, compare and connect with the perspectives of critical epistemology, one of the most important aspects of contemporary philosophy, with Progogine's theoretical proposals, seeking to find connections between them. From this exploratory research of a bibliographic nature, content analysis emerged as the following categories: knowledge, history, nature, use and exact x human. Supported by the discussions built here, he was able to verify that there are intense convergences between a critical epistemology and a work by Prigogine. With this, we confirm that the intertwining between Prigogine and a critical epistemology is strong or sufficient to position him as an epistemologist with critical criticism. The theoretical framework developed here can be used to justify the use of Prigoginian ideas in works of progressive orientation and also opens space for new research on Prigogine's epistemological positioning. Key-words: Progressiveness; Critical Theory; Historical-Social Relations; Science; Nature. Los supuestos teóricos y la epistemología crítica de Ilya Prigogine: ¿un diálogo de convergência? Resumen: Tener claridad sobre las raíces epistemológicas de los marcos teóricos utilizados en la investigación científica es fundamental para que estas investigaciones sean ciertas. Sin embargo, algunos autores, por diversas razones, no hacen explícita esta información en sus trabajos. Entonces surge la necesidad de saber dónde está posicionado epistemológicamente Ilya Prigogine, físico-químico y filósofo que reflexionó sobre una función del tiempo, el conocimiento y los principios fundamentales que gobiernan el universo. De esta forma, la presente investigación buscó analizar, comparar y conectar con las perspectivas de la epistemología crítica, uno de los aspectos más importantes de la filosofía contemporánea, con las propuestas teóricas de Progogine, buscando encontrar conexiones entre ellas. En esta investigación exploratoria de naturaleza bibliográfica, surgieron las siguientes categorías del análisis de contenido: conocimiento, historia, naturaleza, uso y ciencias humanas exactas. Subsidiado por las discusiones construidas aquí, pudo verificar que hay intensas convergencias entre una epistemología crítica y un trabajo de Prigogine. Con eso, confirmamos que el entrelazamiento entre Prigogine y una epistemología crítica es fuerte o suficiente para posicionarlo como un epistemólogo con crítica crítica. El marco teórico desarrollado aquí puede usarse para justificar el uso de ideas de Prigoginian en trabajos de orientación progresiva y también abre espacio para nuevas investigaciones sobre el posicionamiento epistemológico de Prigogine. Mots-clés: Progresismo ; Teoría Crítica ; Relaciones históricas ; Ciencia ; Naturaleza. Data de registro: 13/04/2020 Data de aceite: 22/09/2021. (shrink)

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten grenzt sich in seinem Ius Naturae, das einen knappen Kommentar zu den Exercitationes Iuris Naturalis Heinrich Köhlers darstellt, nach über zwanzigjähriger Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Vorlage entschieden von einer der zentralen Thesen Köhlers ab. Baumgarten löst nämlich dessen Identifikation der Stimmen der Vernunft, des Gewissens, der Natur und Gottes in der Moral auf und zeigt, daß im Gegenteil göttlicher und irdischer Bereich vollständig disjunkt sind.Dies folgt aus der Einsicht in die prinzipielle Ungewißheit eines jeden möglichen moralischen Urteils, das (...) von Menschen gefällt werden kann. Baumgarten begreift solche Urteile als Akte der Zurechnung, die wiederum syllogistische Schlüsse darstellen. Die Gewißheit eines moralischen Urteils hängt demnach von der Gewißheit der Prämissen ab, aus denen es gewonnen wurde. Nun entwickelt Baumgarten hinsichtlich der verschiedenen möglichen Typen moralisch relevanter Handlungen und jeweils in Anschlag zu bringender Gesetze eine differenzierte Theorie zurechnender Instanzen, die er „Foren“ nennt und nach dem Grad der Gewißheit der durch sie möglichen Schlüsse hierarchisiert sind. Dabei zeigt sich, daß keiner jener Zurechnungsschlüsse vollständige Gewißheit beanspruchen kann, auch nicht derjenige, bei der das eigene Gewissen eine eigene Vorstellung unter ein rein aus der Vernunft erkennbares Gesetz bringt. Moralische Urteile über einzelne Handlungen können demzufolge nach Baumgarten immer nur mehr oder weniger wahrscheinlich sein.In his Ius Naturae, which is a short commentary on Heinrich Köhler's Exercitationes Iuris Naturalis, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten departs significantly from one of Köhler's central theses after spending more than twenty years dealing with this work. Baumgarten dissolves Köhler's identification of the voices of reason, of conscience, of nature, and of God into morality and illustrates, contrary to Köhler's position, that the realms of God and of the earth are completely disjunctive.Baumgarten's position follows from his realization that any possible moral judgment human beings reach is in principle uncertain. Baumgarten characterizes such judgments as acts of imputation, which represent syllogistic conclusions. The certainty of a moral judgment depends, according to Baumgarten, on the certainty of the premises from which it is drawn. Baumgarten develops a differentiated theory of imputing instances, which he calls "fora," depending on the variety of possible types of morally relevant actions and applicable laws. Baumgarten then places these instances in a hierarchy according to the degree of certainty of the conclusions they might reach. He then shows that none of these conclusions on imputation can claim complete certainty, not even one for which one's own conscience subsumes one's own imagination under a law that can be recognized purely from reason. Moral judgments about individual actions can thus be only more or less probable according to Baumgarten. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are two importantly distinct normative relations that can be referred to using phrases like ‘X is obligated to Y,’ ‘Y has a right against X,’ or ‘X wronged Y.’ When we say that I am obligated to you not to read your diary, one thing we might mean is that I am subject to a deontological constraint against reading your diary that gives me a non‐instrumental, agent‐relative reason not to do so, and which you are (...) typically in a unique position to waive with consent. I call this first relation the constraint relation. A second thing we might mean is that you are in a position to fittingly hold me personally accountable for reading your diary by demanding that I not read your diary, resenting me if I do so without excuse, and deciding whether to forgive me for this afterwards. I call this second relation the accountability relation. Though these two kinds of directed obligation often coincide, I argue that they are extensionally dissociable and play different normative roles. We cannot provide an adequate theory of ‘obligation to’ until we recognize that this phrase denotes not one relation, but two. (shrink)

Este artigo se propõe a apresentar a formulação feuerbachiana do fundamento sensível do pensamento, buscando mostrar que nesse empreendimento Feuerbach: [1] toma como base uma teoria da objetivação, inseparável de uma teoria do homem como essência-gênero (Gattungswesen); [2] formula uma interpretação do desenvolvimento moderno da filosofia ao qual sua proposta filosófica seria imanente e do qual seria o resultado necessário; e [3] chega a formular as bases de uma nova posição ética, no plexo Eu-Tu. Desse modo, sua posição ontológica, ao (...) reivindicar o sensível como o verdadeiro, não se constitui num imediatismo, pois o sensível aí apresentado é ele mesmo mediado pela existência genérica dos homens. This paper intends to present the Feuerbachian formulation of the sensitive basis of thought, attempting to show that, for such enterprise, Feuerbach: [1] takes as its foundation a theory of objectification, inseparable from a theory of humans as essence-species (Gattungswesen); [2] formulates an interpretation of the modern development of philosophy, from which his philosophical proposal would be immanent and of which it would be the necessary result; and [3] ends up formulating the basis of a new ethical position within the I-You plexus. Thus, his ontological position whereby he claims that that which is sensitive is that which is true does not constitute immediatism because such sensitivity is, itself, mediated by the generic existence of humanity. (shrink)

RESUMO No presente estudo de casos, discutimos a produção de sentidos carregados com elementos prosódicos no começo da vida. Alinhamos essa discussão com observações de Bakhtin acerca de características da enunciação. Com esse alinhamento investimos em explicações sobre o status linguístico da prosódia nos diálogos entre adulto e bebês em situação de aquisição de linguagem. Os dados foram registros videográficos da interação de duas díades adulto-criança, uma francesa e uma brasileira, durante atividades cotidianas1. Nas análises, comparamos variações da curva entonacional (...) dos enunciados dos adultos com vocalizações dos bebês. Nos resultados discutimos como essas variações refletiram exercícios de posições axiológicas, discutidas no âmbito da apropriação enunciativa. Concluímos que os aspectos prosódicos são recursos principais para enunciação no começo da vida e vinculam as práticas com a linguagem ao desenvolvimento humano. ABSTRACT In the present case study, we discuss meaning production, which is full of prosodic elements in early life. We align this discussion with Bakhtin's observations about the characteristics of enunciation. With this alignment, we invested in explanations about the linguistic status of prosody in dialogues between adults and babies in the process of language acquisition. The data we discuss consist of videographic records of interactions of two adult-child dyads, one French and one Brazilian, both recorded during daily life activities.1 In the analyses, we compared variations in the intonational curves of the adults’ utterances with the babies’ vocalizations. In the results, we discuss how these variations reflected in practices of axiological positions, discussed in the context of enunciative appropriation. We conclude that prosodic aspects are the main resources for enunciation at the beginning of life and they enable the link between language practices and human development. (shrink)

When Cicero examines the varied versions of cradle arguments that appear in De finibus, he finds much to criticize. Though he rejects these attempts to discern our proper ethical ends from the earliest inclinations of newborn animals, he nevertheless accepts that human beings should adopt ends for themselves that are consistent with, and perfections of, human nature. I argue that Cicero uses two connected argumentative strategies to create an appeal to nature that overcomes some basic problems he has (...) with the cradle arguments used in Epicureanism, Stoicism, and the Old Academy. The first strategy criticizes the different cradle arguments directly, by which Cicero establishes two negative criteria for any appeal to nature. These criteria indicate what to avoid in arguing for a highest moral end or summum bonum. These criteria eliminate the Epicurean and Stoic cradle arguments, and more subtly criticizes the Antiochian one. As a result, it may seem plausible that Cicero either adopts the Antiochian position himself or that he at least considers it to be a strong position that is worthy of further consideration, particularly in contrast with his categorical rejection of the other schools. Cicero’s second strategy, however, leads us away from accepting any established cradle argument, including the Antiochian one. This strategy develops a rich theme of education over the course of the text and emphasizes an appeal to the telic sense of “nature” that ultimately meets the two criteria set out by his first strategy. He does not seek ethical direction in some biological origin and given nature as cradle arguments do. Cicero appeals instead to human nature and its summum bonum as it appears during philosophical education. Though he finds cradle arguments rely too much on given nature and too little on telic nature, Cicero’s own own emphasis on education and telic nature amounts to a new appeal to “nature” that, in avoiding the “cradle”, is more sound than those of his philosophical rivals. (shrink)

Our target article modeled conflict within and between groups as an asymmetric game of strategy and developed a framework to explain the evolved neurobiological, psychological, and sociocultural mechanisms underlying attack and defense. Twenty-seven commentaries add insights from diverse disciplines, such as animal biology, evolutionary game theory, human neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and political science, that collectively extend and supplement this model in three ways. Here we draw attention to the superordinate structure of attack and defense, and its subordinate means to (...) meet the end of status quo maintenance versus change, and we discuss how variations in conflict structure and power disparities between antagonists can impact strategy selection and behavior during attack and defense; how the positions of attack and defense emerge endogenously and are subject to rhetoric and propaganda; and how psychological and economic interventions can transform attacker-defender conflicts into coordination games that allow mutual gains and dispute resolution. (shrink)

Population control through discriminatory practices is found at all times in history. Never before, however, has use of the sciences been so close to achieving the creation of new mechanisms for generating human "subspecies". This study, which is based on a selected theoretical framework, deals with the biotechnological and bioethical challenges on the path to manipulation as concerns the development of potentially harmful practices in a pluralist context. Segregation or even the destruction of undesirable human beings is (...) a frightening reflection of an egocentric and largely prejudiced society. However, the future will not necessarily be obscure if Homo sapiens can act ethically and positively. (shrink)

Background Italy was the first European country to be involved with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many healthcare professionals were deployed and suddenly faced end-of-life care management and its challenges. Aims To understand the experiences of palliative care professionals deployed in supporting emergency and critical care staff during the COVID-19 first and second pandemic waves. Research design A qualitative descriptive design was adopted, and in-depth interviews were used to investigate and analyse participants’ perceptions and points of view. Participants and (...) research context Twenty-four healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, and spiritual support) from the most affected areas of Italy were recruited via the Italian society of palliative care and researchers’ network. Ethical considerations The University Institutional Board granted ethical approval. Participants gave written informed consent and agreed to be video-recorded. Findings The overarching theme highlighted participants’ experience supporting health professionals to negotiate ethical complexity in end-of-life care. Crucial topics that emerged within themes were: training emergency department professionals on ethical dimensions of palliative and end-of-life care, preserving dying patients’ dignity and developing ethical competence in managing end-of-life care. Conclusions Our study showed palliative care teams’ challenges in supporting health professionals’ ethical awareness in emergencies. However, while they highlighted their concerns in dealing with the emergency staff’s lack of ethical perspectives, they also reported the positive impact of an ethically-informed palliative care approach. Lastly, this study illuminates how palliative care professionals’ clinical and ethical competence might have assisted a cultural change in caring for dying patients during COVID-19 and future emergencies. (shrink)

This book compares the respective concepts of the law of nations put forward by the Spanish theologian Francisco Suárez and by the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. This comparison is based on the fact that both thinkers developed quite similar notions and were the first to depart from the Roman conception, which persisted throughout the entire Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. In Rome, jus gentium was a law that applied to foreigners within the Empire, and one which was often mistaken (...) for Natural Law itself. These two features can be found even in the works of writers such as Francisco de Vitória and Alberico Gentili. In Suárez and Grotius, the law of nations is applicable to an extra-national domain and inarguably becomes positive law. Yet, it also contains an ethical element that prevents it from transforming into a mere reflection of state interests. This work argues that this resemblance is hardly a coincidence: Grotius has read Suárez, and that influence has modified the foundations of his early thoughts on jus gentium. This should not be taken to imply that the Dutch jurist wasn't original: in both authors, the definition of the law of nations pursues his own internal logic. Nevertheless, Suárez's oeuvre allowed Grotius to solve a fundamental problem touched on in his early writings that had remained unanswered. Accordingly, his oeuvre promises to clarify one of the most significant moments in the History of International Law. (shrink)

The objective of the present text is to develop a reflection about the value of human life in today’s society bringing into focus the contrasting perspectives of the ordinary and the extraordinary of life. For that purpose, we emphasize the conception of the Catholic Church from the Second Vatican Council that suggests an attitude of a Pilgrim Church which longs for dialogue with human beings in their ordinary life (we intend to rescue the positive sense of the (...) term "ordinary"), in disadvantage of the triumphalist vision which gives priority to the great deeds of history. In that sense, we establish a dialogue with the literal work Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky whose protagonist Raskolnikov reveals himself through the contemporary dilemma between being and not being extraordinary in the eyes of the society. His moral conscience is tested after a crime he committed. The apex of this revelation takes place after the reading of the Gospel relating to the resurrection of Lazarus shared with Sonia, a flagrant sinner, an ordinary in the eyes of the society represented in the work. In fact, how it happens in the painful passage of Raskolnikov, God makes himself known through the other in borderline situations and we take him into account through the experience which a man of faith realizes when discovering Him to be present. The presence of God in the world is surely not to be understood in the sphere of the extraordinary, what matters is the experience of refuge when we are seduced by the faith. (shrink)