This article explores Max Weber’s ideas about a «successful peace» that he exposed during World War I. For Weber, a successful peace depended essentially on important domestic reforms and a fundamental reorganisation of the German Reich, more than on the foreign policy dimension. Analysing Weber’s “ideas of 1918” – opposed to the so-called “ideas of 1914” – this paper focuses on three aspects: nation and citizenship, Prussia, German tradition, history and political culture.

All organizations have gray areas where the border between right and wrong behavior is blurred, but where a major part of organizational decision-making takes place. While gray areas can be sources of problems for organizations, they also have benefits. The author proposes that gray areas are functional in organizations. Gray areas become problematic when the process for dealing with them is flawed, when gatekeeper managers see themselves as more ethical than their peers, and when leaders, by their own inattention, inaction, (...) and poor modeling, minimize the importance of building a moral community by delegating gray area issues to second-tier administrators. Gray areas provide wiggle room in coping with ethical dilemmas in organizations. (shrink)

Präzision ist ein Schlüsselbegriff in Technik, Kunst und Wissenschaft, der in enger Verbindung mit Verfahren der Messung und Feinmechanik steht, aber auch die Schärfe sprachlicher Begriffsbildung oder die Synchronisation tänzerischer Bewegungen beschreiben kann. Die Wissenschaftsgeschichte zeigt, dass der Bedarf nach grösstmöglicher Präzision auch die Widersprüche von Messung und Modell, Versuch und Vorhersage in sich aufgenommen hat - abweichende Messergebnisse wurden so zum eigentlichen Beleg für die Genauigkeit einer Methode und den Bedarf ihrer weiteren Raffinierung. Der interdisziplinäre Blick auf verschiedene Felder (...) zeigt, wie der damit verbundene Anspruch in ihnen produktiv gemacht und reflektiert worden ist. Fallstudien zu Beispielen aus mehreren Jahrhunderten gehen dieser Frage nach, ergänzt um Auszüge aus grundlegenden historisch-theoretischen Beiträgen. (shrink)

Based on conversation analysis, this study investigates central practices in what is defined as a caring interview, in the context of welfare administration. Caring refers to a helpful interviewing in reformulations of questions, taking interviewees’ difficulties to answer into consideration; a caring attitude in the framing of questions, showing understanding of clients’ circumstances and professional’s enactment of expertise in assessments of clients’ disabilities and care needs. Data include a corpus of 43 recorded interviews in which officials at the Swedish Social (...) Insurance Agency interview clients who have applied for benefits. The study adds to research on interactional sensitivity, polar questions and epistemic stance in institutional interaction. The study shows how the interviewer prioritizes confirming polar questions, takes responsibilities of knowing into account and reduces the epistemic gap to the interviewee in practices of a caring interview. This makes the interviewing markedly different from standardized and bureaucratic interviewing. (shrink)

In 1992 M.W. Evans proposed the O(3) symmetry of electromagnetic fields by adding a constant longitudinal magnetic field to the well-known transverse electric and magnetic fields of circularly polarized plane waves, such that certain cyclic relations of a so-called O(3) symmetry are fulfilled. Since then M.W. Evans has elevated this O(3) symmetry to the status of a new law of electromagnetics. As a law of physics must be invariant under admissible coordinate transforms, namely Lorentz transforms, in 2000 he published a (...) proof of the Lorentz invariance of O(3) symmetry of electromagnetic fields. As will be shown below this proof is incorrect; more, after simple correction it will turn out here that the O(3) symmetry cannot be Lorentz invariant. (shrink)

This book explores the puzzling phenomenon of new veiling practices among lower middle class women in Cairo, Egypt.

Ethics failure in academia is not new, yet its prevalence, causes, and methods to prevent it remain a matter of debate. The author’s premise is that value dissonance underlies most of the reasons ethics failure occurs. Vignettes are used to illustrate value dissonance at the individual and institutional levels. Suggestions are offered for ways academic institutions can assume greater responsibility as a moral agency to prevent the occurrence of ethics failure.

Wissen erzeugen, reflektieren und Verstehen fördern – Bilder haben vielfältige Funktionen. Ihr informativer Wert ist stark gewachsen, bildliche Kommunikation ist in Kunst, Unterhaltung oder Werbung ebenso relevant wie in den Naturwissenschaften oder der Philosophie. Das Studienbuch „Das Bild“ diskutiert die Fragen, was ein Bild ist, wie es verstanden, betrachtet oder erforscht werden kann, aber auch, welche politischen und ökonomischen Implikationen mit ihm verbunden sein können. Begrifflichkeiten und Betrachtungsweisen – Themen und Perspektiven Geschichte der Bildmedien und Bildfunktionen Bildforschung zwischen Hochkunst und (...) Populärkultur Formen, Farben, Linien: Zugänge zum Bildlichen Kontexte: Politische Repräsentation, Wissenschaft, Markt Kombinationen, Oppositionen: Ur- und Vorbilder, Reihen und Vergleiche, Text und Bild Diagramm, Raum, Bewegung: Visuelle Techniken der Übersicht, Einsicht und Aufzeichnung Pressestimmen: "Dieses Buch bietet eine für die Zielgruppe der Studenten der Kulturwissenschaften konzipierte Einführung in die Theorie und Geschichte des Bildes." Irene Ittekkot in: ekz-Informationsdienst, 20/2009 "Das zu besprechende Buch, eine in angenehmster Weise einer Schulkladde ähnelnde, sorgsam und sehr leserfreundlich gestaltete Broschur, spricht das Bedürfnis nach Allgemeinbildung an und erfüllt jenen Auftrag wohl nahezu vollkommen. [...] Bildererzeugung, Bildauswertung und Bildwahrnehmung [...] werden in ihrer historischen Entwicklung, wie auch Entwicklungsmodelle selbst, anschaulich, detailliert durchdacht und zuverlässig moderat im Überblick dargestellt. [...] Mit Bildern, Wissen vermittelnden, Verstehen fördernden und visuellen Repräsentationen, werden anhand der Forschungsergebnisse und Erfahrungen vor allem englisch- und deutschsprachiger Wissenschaftler 'soziale, technische oder ökonomische Blickweisen' erörtert, die - mit zunehmender Medialität - nach sprachlicher Differenzierung verlangen; ein Anspruch, den der Autor hervorragend einlöst." Heike Wetzig in: Journal für Kunstgeschichte, 13 1 "Matthias Bruhn [...] gelang mit dieser Publikation eine Fibel des Bildes. Insofern kann hier jeder Interessierte das Alphabet der Bilder lernen und sich darüber hinaus, mittels umfangreichem Serviceteil, weiterbilden. Dieses Angebot ist konkurrenzlos, [...] [ein] Grundlagenwerk." Sigrid Gaisreiter in: kunstbuchanzeiger.de, Juli 2009 Kommentare zum Buch: "Der Ansatz bzw. das Versprechen 'Theorie, Geschichte, Praxis' zu behandeln, wird tatsächlich eingehalten!" Tatjana Timoschenko, Universität Hamburg "Das Buch ist nicht nur schön gestaltet, sondern führt auch sehr gut in das Thema ein." Sebastian Funk, Universität Köln "Das Studienbuch überzeugt durch eine umfassende Behandlung des Themas auf gutem Niveau." Dr. Matthias Buck, Universität Halle "Das Buch vermittelt dem Leser einen guten Einstieg in die Thematik der Bildwissenschaft und versucht darüber hinaus den Blick des Lesers auf die verschiedenen Ebenen und Positionen zu lenken, in denen Bilder von Bedeutung sind. Dem Anspruch ein Studienbuch zu schaffen, in dem ein kompaktes Basiswissen vermittelt werden soll, wird der Autor hier vollkommen gerecht." Dominika Makowski, Studentin aus Hagen "Was ist ein Bild? Was kann mir ein Bild sagen? Was möchte das Bild ausdrücken? Wie kann ich das Bild erforschen? Was kann das Bild in Zusammenhang mit Politik oder Ökonomie bewirken? Mit diesen Frage ging ich – als Studentin der Kulturwissenschaften - an das Buch heran und fand erstaunlicherweise auf alle Fragen und noch viele weitere – nur unbewusst gestellte Fragen – eine verständliche Antwort." Melanie Witzik, Studentin aus Hof. (shrink)

On 11 August 1957, the Munich Opera Festival premiered a recently completed opera by the celebrated German composer Paul Hindemith, Die Harmonie der Welt. Hindemith bases the dramaturgical and musical features of this opera on the scientific and spiritual content found in the writings of the 17th-century mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Johannes Kepler. Six years before he started working on this opera, the composer responded to a commission received from the Swiss conductor and patron of contemporary composers, Paul Sacher, by (...) quickly composing and sending off the Symphony Die Harmonie der Welt which, as the composer writes in the program book for the first performance, “develops passages from the opera” in three movements entitled with terms taken from Boethius: I Musica instrumentalis, II Musica humana, and III Musica mundana. What are we to make of the explanation that the symphony “develops passages” from a work of which as yet nothing, neither libretto nor music, existed on paper? I want to show that it is tempting to assume a creative process that matures from the spiritual and aesthetic idea through a composition of musical material into components that would later serve both an instrumental and a music-dramatic representation of the subject.  . (shrink)

ABSTRACT Speakers may argue in ways that facilitate cooperation, without really establishing unity. If emphasis is put on the word “composite” in composite audience, then the complementary act of addressing such an audience can be understood as an orchestration of different people, who may cooperate toward a conclusion. This brings attention to the multidimensionality of issues in pluralistic communities and the range of consequences proposals may have. Following Perelman’s and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric, I discuss how the compositeness of such argumentation (...) can be fruitfully approached pluralistically. I argue that proposals on practical issues imply concomitant situations, wherein audiences are assigned different roles to play toward the ends of argumentation. This means that rhetorical argumentation performs implicit diplomacy, with implications for different audiences and the relationships between them. I conclude this article by discussing what this pluralistic and interactional account means for the analysis and evaluation of arguments and their rhetoric. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Although his contributions to philosophy are revered and his writings have been collected, Eric Voegelin’s persona will inevitably fade with the memories of those who knew him. This book preserves the human element of Voegelin by capturing those valuable personal recollections. Barry Cooper and Jodi Bruhn conducted intensive interviews with Voegelin’s wife, his closest friends, and his first-generation students—many of whom have since passed on—in order to bring to print everything important about his life and personality. American scholars will (...) especially appreciate the glimpses provided by Voegelin’s German colleagues into his life in Munich, as well as the thoughts of his students in Vienna. Reflections of people such as Paul Caringella, Bruno Schlesinger, and Heinz Barazon capture Voegelin’s greatness and shortcomings alike and also shed new light on his philosophical quest for truth. By descending progressively further into the past, the book takes readers deeper into the essence of Voegelin as reminiscences become more dramatic. Ranging widely from America back to Germany—with recollections of Gestapo intimidation and eventual emigration—the accounts interweave episodes of pathos, humor, fear, rivalry, and ambition. We witness Voegelin’s persistent and partly self-imposed communication problems and impatience with administrative duties, his respect for prudent political actors and public servants, and his genuine affection not only for his colleagues and best students but also for diligent secretaries and empathetic nurses. Through these recollections, key elements of his personality repeatedly emerge: his intelligence, optimism, and integrity, combined with an acute perception of the significance of his work. This is the most revealing and comprehensive biographical work yet available on a man known to be captivating as a thinker—and now shown to be equally fascinating as a human being. His own publications attest to his mind and methods; _Voegelin Recollected_ provides a deeper understanding of the man himself. (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

Als einer der prominentesten Vertreter seines Faches hat Horst Bredekamp nicht nur die Kunst- und Bildgeschichte tiefgehend geprägt, sondern auch in Kultur und Politik gewirkt. Dabei hat er es geschafft, belastbare Brücken zwischen diesen oft weit auseinander liegenden Bereichen zu schlagen. Ein Porträt Bredekamps als Gelehrter und disziplinübergreifender Vermittler scheint aufgrund dieser Fülle an Handlungsebenen nur über ein Tableau von Berichten derjenigen möglich, die mit ihm über die Jahre im Austausch standen, ihn begleitet und geprägt, mit ihm diskutiert und gestritten (...) haben. Dabei sind die Fragen an diese Wegbegleiter auch gleichzeitig an den Wissenschaftsbetrieb des 21. Jahrhunderts gerichtet; Sie bilden somit eine Positionsschrift zur Lage der Wissenschaft in Deutschland und an internationalen Forschungsinstituten. (shrink)

The relations between reason, motivation and value present problems which, though ancient, remain intractable. If values are objective and rational how can they move us and if they are dependent on our contingent desires how can they be rational? E. J. Bond makes a bold attack on this dilemma. The widespread view among philosophers today is that judgements contain an irreducible element of personal commitment. To this Professor Bond proposes an account of values as objective and value judgements as true (...) or false, employing a distinction between grounding and motivating reasons to establish their connection with action. He defines and tests his position against a number of recent theories, providing in the process forceful criticism of Williams, Wiggins, Foot, Narveson and Nagel, among others. A distinctive contribution to the subject, it will stimulate interest and worthwhile debate among philosophers, while also serving as an introduction to this vital topic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“A Child Has Been Born unto Us”Arendt on BirthAdriana CavareroTranslated by Silvia Guslandi and Cosette BruhnsIn The Human Condition, at the end of the dense chapter on action, Hannah Arendt reiterates that action, that is, the political faculty for excellence, “is ontologically rooted” in the fact of natality, “like an ever-present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to (...) begin” (Arendt 1998, 246).1 To reinforce this argument, Arendt compares action to miracles, and makes an interesting and, as we will see, somewhat perplexing reference to the Bible:[The miracle] is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope, those two essential characteristics of human existence which Greek antiquity ignored altogether.…It is this faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and most succinct expression in the few words with which the Gospels announced their “glad tidings”: “A child has been born unto us.”(HC, 247)The citation is suggestive, but incorrect. In the Gospels, which do announce with true joy the birth of the child, the phrase as it is quoted here does not exist. It appears instead in Isaiah (9:6), translated into English both as “For to us a child is borne,” and, in the version of the King James Bible from which Arendt is plausibly drawing, as “For unto us a child is born.” The error, if indeed it is an error, is thus twofold (see Young-Ah Gottlieb 2003, 136ff.), since [End Page 12] both the passage referenced and the words cited are incorrect. That Arendt frequently cites from memory, and that the citations tend to be bibliographically incorrect, is known to her interpreters, but in this case the error ends up being quite significant. As is well known, the prophetic text carries a strong Messianic burden, and such a burden would trouble significantly the thesis that Arendt is here illustrating; the Gospels’ message creates instead fewer obstacles to her strategy of framing the meaning of birth within the mundane horizon that in her vocabulary takes the names of “world” or “worldliness.” Since “‘to live’ and to ‘be among men’” mean the same thing (HC, 7), the child, every newborn, that is, every human being that makes its entrance in the world, is not, according to the Arendtian vision, born to us, coming from elsewhere, but appears among us here. The scenario of birth, like that of action, whatever be the holy text that mentions or exemplarily validates them, is, for Arendt, a radically mundane scenario that does not call into question any transcendence or religious instance of salvation.Jewish, secular, and classically trained in Greek and Latin, Arendt, who had little familiarity with the Jewish language and tradition, met Christian thought primarily through Saint Augustine, to whom she dedicated her doctoral thesis (Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, published in Berlin in 1929 and then in English in 1996 as Love and Saint Augustine), and who remained a constant point of reference throughout her work. A phrase from Augustine—initium ut esset homo creatus est—present in the thesis, appears, in fact, in Arendt’s later texts, including The Human Condition, indeed with obsessive repetitiveness in reference to the category of birth.2 In her monumental work The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, a full seven years prior to The Human Condition, Arendt already writes: “Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom. Initium ut esset homo creatus est, ‘that a beginning be made, man was created’, said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man” (Arendt 1973, 479). On the philosophically anomalous theme of birth, the contributions of the Christian tradition that Arendt does appreciate are predominantly two: the “glad tidings” that herald the coming of the child, and Augustine’s comments on the narrative of Creation.Natality, Birth, and the Human Condition of... (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring (...) advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore how nurses perceive patient participations of patients over 75 years old undergoing hemodialysis treatment in dialysis units, and of their next of kin. Ten nurses told stories about what happened in the dialysis units. These stories were analyzed with critical discourse analysis. Three discursive practices are found: (1) the nurses’ power and control; (2) sharing power with the patient; and (3) transferring power to the next of kin. The first and the predominant (...) discursive practice can be explained with an ideology of paternalism, in which the nurses used biomedical explanations and the ethical principle of benefice to justify their actions. The second can be explained with an ideology of participation, in which the nurses used ethical narratives as a way to let the patients participate in the treatment. The third seemed to involve autonomous decision-making and the ethical principle of autonomy for the next of kin in the difficult end-of-life decisions. (shrink)

Arguing that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably relied on metaphors in articulation, the contributors to this volume offer a new "key" to understanding a critically important area of human knowledge by specifying the major metaphors.

Released in 1984, Steven E. Rhoads' classic was considered by many to be among the best introductions to the economic way of thinking and its applications. This anniversary edition has been updated to account for political and economic developments - from the greater interest in redistributing income and the ascendancy of behaviorism to the Trump presidency. Rhoads explores opportunity cost, marginalism, and economic incentives and explains why mainstream economists - even those well to the left - still value free markets. (...) He critiques economics for its unbalanced emphasis on narrow self-interest as controlling motive and route to happiness, highlighting philosophers and positive psychologists' findings that happiness is far more dependent on friends and family than on income or wealth. This thought-provoking tour of the economist's mind is a must read for our times, providing a clear, lively, non-technical insight into how economists think and why they shouldn't be ignored. (shrink)

We have identified a sample of 53 societies outside of the classical Himalayan and Marquesean area that permit polyandrous unions. Our goal is to broadly describe the demographic, social, marital, and economic characteristics of these societies and to evaluate some hypotheses of the causes of polyandry. We demonstrate that although polyandry is rare it is not as rare as commonly believed, is found worldwide, and is most common in egalitarian societies. We also argue that polyandry likely existed during early human (...) history and should be examined from an evolutionary perspective. Our analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males and may also be a response to high rates of male mortality and, possibly, male absenteeism. Other factors may contribute, but our within-polyandry sample limits analysis. (shrink)