Using Least Square Residual Minimization techniques, this paper develops an optimal reserve model, known as the OPREM model, which is essential in optimizing the costs of reserve holding. The paper also sets-out to test and compare the relative predictions of economic trends of the OPREM model as well as the predictions of alternative models in literature. Establishing the predictive accuracy of economic trends of these models are crucial for the gradual and cost-effective accumulation of reserves. The research concludes that, the (...) decision to optimize the cost of reserves under a stable currency environment is reliant on the gold impact factor and not on inflation or interest rates. We also found on further analysis of the OPREM that the OPREM model is better positioned to eliminate the procyclicality and perverse rush in reserve build-ups experienced in developing and emerging countries by effectively setting the reserve stock against economic trends. The research fixes the optimal reserves around a benchmark of 0.7–1.2 of previous year's optimal value. However, in the absence of past optimal values, a benchmark between 2 and 6 times of average inflows for short-term analysis or analysis with small data observations. However, for long-term analysis or analysis with large data frequency, the reserve stock should be fixed on a benchmark of 2–9 times of the average inflows. (shrink)

La 4ème de couv. indique : "Avec "Hors sujet", Emmanuel Levinas revient et approfondit sa réflexion sur le noyau dur de sa philosophie : la relation avec l’Autre. Méditation superbe qui entraîne vers l’analyse des "Droits de l’homme et droits d’autrui", une approche singulière du "Langage quotidien" et de la "rhétorique sans éloquence", ou encore de "La Transcendance des mots". En chemin, le philosophe retrouve la trace de ceux auprès desquels il a fortifié sa propre pensée – Merleau-Ponty, Jankélévitch, (...) Leiris, mais aussi Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig ou Jean Wahl. Une magistrale leçon de philosophie.". (shrink)

We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

Organisations are increasingly expected to respond to societal and environmental issues within their supply chains. The nuances of this expectation necessitate the consideration of the disparities in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices within supply chains. Drawing on the stakeholder theory, this paper examines the meanings and influences on socially responsible purchasing (SRP) in supply chains. It adopts an interpretivist qualitative methodology, relying on data from semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with practitioners from multi-national and indigenous organisations in Nigeria. Our findings present a (...) useful understanding of SRP based on the specific endogenous-level and exogenous-level influences. In particular, we develop an encompassing scope for SRP's meaning, outlining its key components, clarifying its boundaries and highlighting inconsistencies in its description. Our study provides a fresh understanding of SRP, with attendant contributions to the broad literature on CSR, corporate governance and supply chain management. It also offers insights to managers, purchasers, suppliers, financial analysts and policy-makers in embedding SRP. (shrink)

The ethics of conducting research in epidemic situations have yet to account fully for differences in the proportion and acuteness of epidemics, among other factors. While epidemics most often arise from infectious diseases, not all infectious diseases are of epidemic proportions, and not all epidemics occur acutely. These and other variations constrain the generalization of ethical decision‐making and impose ethical demands on the individual researcher in a way not previously highlighted. This paper discusses a number of such constraints and impositions. (...) It applies the ethical principles enunciated by Emmanuel et al.1 to the controversial Pfizer study in Nigeria in order to highlight the particular ethical concerns of acute epidemic research, and suggest ways of meeting such challenges.The paper recommends that research during epidemics should be partly evaluated on its own merits in order to determine its ethical appropriateness to the specific situation. Snap decisions to conduct research during acute epidemics should be resisted. Community engagement, public notification and good information management are needed to promote the ethics of conducting research during acute epidemics. Individual consent is most at risk of being compromised, and every effort should be made to ensure that it is maintained and valid. Use of data safety management boards should be routine. Acute epidemics also present opportunities to enhance the social value of research and maximize its benefits to communities.Ethical research is possible in acute epidemics, if the potential challenges are thought of ahead of time and appropriate precautions taken. (shrink)

We examine a special case of inquiry games and give an account of the informational import of asking questions. We focus on yes-or-no questions, which always carry information about the questioner's strategy, but never about the state of Nature, and show how strategic information reduces uncertainty through inferences about other players' goals and strategies. This uncertainty cannot always be captured by information structures of classical game theory. We conclude by discussing the connection with Gricean pragmatics and contextual constraints on interpretation.

André Malraux, le conquérant aveugle.--Albert Camus; ou, L'appel des humiliés.--Perspectives existentialistes et perspectives chrétiennes.--Un surnaturalisme historique: Georges Bernanos.

This volume is Mounier's final definition of personalism. First published less than a year before his death in 1950, it is a beautifully written, clear yet unsystematic statement of personalism.

Résumé — La controverse religieuse qui a suivi l’essor du luthéranisme est ordinairement présentée comme le moteur principal de la reviviscence du pyrrhonisme à l’âge moderne. Au XVIe siècle, la religion aurait fait du pyrrhonisme un outil apologétique puissant, véritable arme que s’opposeraient les diverses confessions. Pourtant, comme le note Bayle dans son Dictionnaire, les rapports entre le scepticisme et la théologie sont extrêmement ambigus : un rapide tableau des appréciations portées par les théologiens chrétiens montrent que, chez les Réformés (...) comme chez les catholiques, l’humiliation des lumières naturelles est pensée comme une entrave à l’instauration de la foi. Seuls les courants pauliniens et mystiques voient dans cette philosophie un moyen bénéfique à la vie spirituelle. Pour devenir un outil intellectuel reconnu dans les milieux catholiques tridentins, le pyrrhonisme a dû subir une métamorphose radicale : Omer Talon, suivi par Gentian Hervet, ont reconfiguré le pyrrhonisme à partir du modèle probabiliste de la Nouvelle Académie, pourtant récusé par Sextus Empiricus. Assoupli, le scepticisme a alors été pensé comme le moyen privilégié d’une refondation de la dialectique rationaliste et de la défense de la foi.— The religious controversy which followed the development of Lutheranism is usually presented as the main engine of the revivescence of the Pyrrhonism in early modern period. In the sixteenth century, religion would have made by Pyrrhonism a powerful apologetic tool, true weapon that adverse confessions would have set against each other. Nevertheless, as Bayle notes it in its Dictionary, the connection between scepticism and theology is extremely ambiguous : a fast outline of the appreciations carried by the Christian theologians shows that, by protestants as well as by Catholics, the humiliation of natural lights is thought as an obstacle of the institution of faith. Only the Paulinian and mystic currents see in such a philosophy a beneficial resource for spiritual life. To become an intellectual tool recognized in the catholic Tridentin circles, Pyrrhonism must have been subjected to a radical transformation : Omer Talon, followed by Gentian Hervet, has restructured Pyrrhonism from the probabilistic model of the New Academy, even though such a model was rejected by Sextus Empiricus. Such mitigated, scepticism has then been considered as one of the privileged means of the refondation of rationalistic dialectic, and of the defence of faith. (shrink)

Background: Genetic research involving racial/ethnic populations has novel ethical implications for various stakeholders, but ethical acceptability among stakeholders regarding such research is not clear. Methods: As part of a multifaceted National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)/National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) funded survey, we used repeated-measures factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare the perspectives of institutional review board (IRB) chairs (n = 203), investigators (n = 183), and community members (n = 192) on the ethical acceptability of participating (...) in and reporting of psychiatric genetic research focused on racial/ethnic minority groups. Stakeholder views were assessed with two sets of three questions. Results: All stakeholder groups perceived participation in genetic studies focused on racial/ethnic groups as ethically acceptable and endorsed as ethical any decisions by racial/ethnic minorities to decline to participate in such studies if concerned about possible discrimination/stigmatization based on the study findings. Stakeholders disagreed considerably on the ethical acceptability of researchers or journal editors choosing not to publish genetic study results focused on racial/ethnic minority groups based on potential harm of the study findings. Conclusion: Findings show community and professional stakeholders support participation in genetic research focused on specific racial/ethnic groups but recognize that the results of such studies may contribute to discrimination or stigmatization. Stakeholders differed in their perspectives of investigators and editors in balancing ethical issues intrinsic to advancing science versus minimizing harm to potentially vulnerable populations. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Hegel’s concept of freedom as self-liberation. I consider the struggle between the soul and the body within Hegel’s Anthropology as an example of how conflict can act as a condition for asserting one’s freedom through self-improvement or Bildung. In this regard, there are reminiscent aspects of the famous ‘Lordship and Bondage’ dialectic within Hegel’s treatment of the body-soul relation. If the initial dominion of nature over the soul can be described as madness for Hegel, habit (...) constitutes the mean through which spirit acquires its freedom. (shrink)

This article aims to reconstruct the intellectual, political and biographical connection between Michel Foucault and the group known as the "new philosophers". By focusing not only on their philosophical project, but also on the way in which they try to situate themselves in the new French intellectual field of the second half of the 1970s - deeply influenced by the decline of the political cycle of 1968 - we attempt to describe the boundaries of two ways of conceiving theoretical work (...) and of understanding the present that are radically different but, nevertheless, in some respects coincident. This analysis of the relationship between Foucault and the new philosophers - mainly developed around the figures of Bernard Henri-Lévy and André Glucksmann - aims, thus, to decipher not only some aspects of their philosophical proposal, but also of a particularly turbulent time crucial to understand the following decades. (shrink)

This paper asks whether or not normative political philosophy can face the challenge of the critique of the political. This question is addressed to theories of justice in general, but this paper considers Habermas' position in particular. It advances the thesis that the main theoretical and political problem of theories of justice is that they have not really taken the abolitionist dimension of the concept of justice into account. As a consequence, they run the risk of reproducing in themselves the (...) political abstraction that they should criticise. (shrink)

The year 2001, the first of our twenty-first century, marks a turning point in the publication of the work of Martin Heidegger. That year, the very first courses he taught during the Third Reich were published. Under the seemingly noble title Being and Truth (Sein und Wahrheit), the double volume 36/37 of the complete works (Gesamtausgabe) grouped the 1933 summer course, The Fundamental Question of Philosophy (Der Grundfrage der Philosophie), and the 1933/34 winter semester course, On the Essence of Truth (...) (Vom Wesen der Wahrheit). Why was this a turning point? For one thing, these are among the most explicitly National Socialist and Hitlerian courses he taught. In them, we discover that Heidegger does not limit .. (shrink)

Résumé Le principe de précaution engage les rapports entre la connaissance, les risques et l’action ; appréhendé d’un point de vue simultanément éthique et politique, il pose également un défi aux institutions et au public pour ce qui est de sa mobilisation dans le débat et de sa mise en œuvre dans l’action, en tant que principe possédant une portée générale. L’article propose une description des problèmes spécifiques que comporte, à cet égard, le choix des interprétations. Cette description conduit à (...) une appréciation positive du nouveau rôle dévolu aux démarches participatives dans la discussion des enjeux éthiques et des risques acceptables. (shrink)

Provides the first comprehensive interpretation of Kierkegaard's view of Christian revelation and demonstrates the central importance of that concept for understanding the development of his religious philosophy.

Olsson and his collaborators have proposed an extension of Belief Revision Theory where an epistemic state is modeled as a triple S=⟨K_,E,A_⟩ , where A_ is a research agenda, i.e. a set of research questions. Contraction and expansion apply to states, and affect the agenda. We propose an alternative characterization of the problem of agenda updating, where research questions are viewed as blueprints for research strategies. We offer a unified solution to this problem, and prove it equivalent to Olsson’s own. (...) We conclude arguing that: (i) our solution makes the idea of ‘minimal change’ in questions and agendas clearer; (ii) can be extended in ways the original theory was not, and may help better realize the aims this theory was proposed for; (iii) unveils some limitations of the initial approach, yet opening a way to overcome them. (shrink)

In 1978, treatment and vaccination programs were recommended to control bovine trypanosomiasis and brucellosis in Ivory Coast. A single trypanocidal treatment of young calves dramatically reduced their mortality rate. A preliminary demonstration project was carried out in a limited area by the government agency SODEPRA, followed by demonstrations on nearly all the farms. The costs were covered by SODEPRA as one of their development projects. Over a period of time the farmers took charge of the treatments, both financially and physically. (...) In 1992, the trypanocidal treatments were still widely used. The reasons for this success could be its dramatic efficacy, the simple technology employed, the low cost that was progressively charged to the farmers, and the fact that this was a long term extension project with continuous farmer training. The brucellosis control program started with an initial vaccination of 1 to 10 year old females followed by an annual vaccination of 1 to 2 year old heifers. One year later, a 37% reduction in the abortion rate was observed. The vaccination were paid for and carried out by SODEPRA. The control program then stopped but, because of growing problems with brucellosis, vaccinations started again in 1992. There is still a question of how vaccinations will be accepted when the farmers are required to share the cost for the control of a largely inconspicuous disease. (shrink)

This paper takes the recent French elections as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the presidential function in parliamentary democracies. The discrepancy between the winning candidate's pre-election declarations and his actual approach to his new function reflects a fundamental divergence in the possible interpretations of political representation. This divergence was made fully explicit and came to a head in the debate that opposed the two great jurists of the Weimar Republic, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt. This paper suggests (...) that revisiting this old polemic can yield interesting insights into the contemporary situation. (shrink)

La réflexion sur le positivisme juridique est au cœur d'interrogations importantes concernant la portée des règles de droit, la nature de l'Etat et les relations entre droit et morale. L'examen des présupposés et des thèses philosophiques de la Théorie pure du droit de Hans Kelsen et du Concept de droit d'Herbert Hart permet de s'orienter dans ces débats. Les deux auteurs proposent des théories distinctes d'une même réalité : la mise en vigueur, dans des collectivités, de règles possédant une forme (...) d'objectivité. Leurs descriptions du fonctionnement des systèmes juridiques obligent à reconduire à ses fondements l'examen de la nature et de la connaissance des normes. De ce fait, la comparaison des doctrines doit permettre de mieux comprendre, en particulier, l'articulation entre le registre du devoir-être et la prise en compte de la réalité de la vie sociale organisée par le droit. (shrink)

Cet article développe un argument destiné à montrer que la conception des lois de nature chez Hobbes, ainsi que la conception de leurs relations avec les raisons de l’action, l’obligation et la rationalité individuelle, sont des repères importants pour les débats contemporains sur les limites de la conception de la rationalité individuelle en termes de maximisation unilatérale de l’avantage personnel. Les vues de Hobbes ont un intérêt permanent à la fois pour les théoriciens de la décision et pour les philosophes (...) moralistes ou politologues, puisque de nombreux théoriciens moraux ou politiques estiment que la moralité et la rationalité individuelle devraient coïncider à un certain niveau au moins. On essaie ici de montrer que certains problèmes intrigants qui demeurent peuvent être abordés d’une manière satisfaisante, dans des cas limités, dans un modèle cognitiviste unifié de la rationalité pratique individuelle, selon une direction hobbesienne.In this article, it is argued that Hobbes’s conception of the laws of nature is a truly important focal point for contemporary debates on the limits of unilateral advantage-maximizing views of individual rationality. The Hobbesian views have permanent interest both for decision theorists and for moral and political philosophers, since many moral and political thinkers hold that morality and individual rationality should coincide at some level at least. It is argued that some of the remaining, puzzling problems in reconciling individual rationality and morality can be dealt with satisfactorily in some limited cases in a unified cognitive model of individual practical rationality, following a Hobbesian direction. (shrink)

Shepard's theoretical analysis of generalization is assumed to enable an objective measure of the relation between objects, an assumption taken on board by Tenenbaum & Griffiths. I argue that context effects apply to generalization in the same way as they apply to similarity. Thus, the need to extend Shepard's formalism in a way that incorporates context effects should be acknowledged. [Shepard; Tenenbaum & Griffiths].

This response to the open peer commentary discusses what should be the appropriate explanatory scope of a rules versus similarity proposal and accordingly evaluates the Rules versus Similarity one. Additionally, coherence, goals, and commitment are presented as inferential notions, fully consistent with the Rules versus Similarity distinction, that allow us to predict when Rules would be preferred to Similarity.