The Dual State, first published in 1941, remains one of the most erudite books on the legal origins of democracy and dictatorship. It provided the first comprehensive analysis of the rise and nature of National Socialism, and was the only such analysis written from within Hitler's Germany. Fraenkel's concept of the dual state, being the normative state and the the prerogative state. It retains its vital relevance for the theory of democracy in the twenty-first century. The Dual State considerably influenced (...) scholars studying and working on questions of political justice in the period following World War II, particularly in the context of political and legal theory; in the domain of legal history; in the area of constitutional theory; in the context of comparative politics; and in what has become known as the field of comparative constitutional law. This republication of Fraenkel's classic work makes it once again widely available to scholars and students in the field. It includes both Fraenkel's 1974 introduction to the German second edition, never before published in English, and a new introduction by Dr Jens Meierhenrich, examining the world in which The Dual State was originally published, and the lasting legacy of this classic work. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Perception-Action Mutuality Obviates Mental Construction” by Martin Flament Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia Carello. Upshot: I contrast enactivist and ecological perspectives on some of the themes raised by the authors. I discuss some of their worries about the notion of sense-making and other epistemological aspects of enactivism.

This article focuses on Max Weber’s understanding of “ethos” in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” and the benefits afforded by this concept. The reference is not accidental as it is in this work that Weber could consistently explicate his ethical argument. The idea of ethos becomes clearer in comparison with the concept of habitus, which is actively used today in social science. It is shown that the distinction between ethos and habitus may be more productive than the (...) conflation common in modern research. The category “ethos” is compared with the value-rational action from the later typology of action in Weber’s “Economy and Society”, while habitus is associated with traditional action from the same typology. The concept of ethos is further clarified by the example of Weber’s opposition of traditionalism and ethical modern Western capitalism. By focusing on ethical issues and using character as a theoretical tool, Weber not only puts forward a convincing interpretation but lays the foundations for a specific line of analysis in social and economic science. The category of ethos in conjunction with the value-rational type of action acquires special significance due to the potential for novelty and change that is embedded in it. (shrink)

В книге дается комплексный философско-методологический анализ современной фундаментальной науки, особенностей и перспектив ее развития. Для специалистов.

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these "ultimate ambiguities," assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective and (...) present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications. (shrink)

The Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU exercised a major influence on research on cardinal problems of world development, including the problems of war and peace, which were defined by the congress as the principal question of our time. The Peace Program propounded by the Twenty-fourth Party Congress was pursued and developed so extensively and integrally at the Twenty-fifth Congress that this historical document as a whole came to be termed the Peace Program of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses of the (...) CPSU. The Party undertook exceptionally extensive measures to implement the decisions of the Twenty-fifth Congress, and theoretical aspects of the problem of war and peace were comprehensively and profoundly argued and elaborated in the works of L. I. Brezhnev - and other leaders of the Party and Soviet government. (shrink)