In the first comprehensive biography of Ferdinand de Saussure, John E. Joseph restores the full character and history of a man who is considered the founder of modern linguistics and whose ideas have influenced literary theory, philosophy, cultural studies, and virtually every other branch of humanities and the social sciences.
Originally published by Ballinger, this book is a result of an Atlantic Council study of U.S. international relationships on energy. It examines the uncertainties of a political, strategic, economic, and technological nature that are involved in energy supply, as well as the unavoidable certainty of finite resources.
Where is language? Answers to this have attempted to 'incorporate' language in an 'extended mind', through cognition that is 'embodied', 'distributed', 'situated' or 'ecological'. Behind these concepts is a long history that this book is the first to trace. Extending across linguistics, philosophy, psychology and medicine, as well as literary and religious dimensions of the question of what language is, and where it is located, this book challenges mainstream, mind-based accounts of language. Looking at research from the Middle Ages to (...) the present day, and exploring the work of a range of scholars from Aristotle and Galen to Merleau-Ponty and Chomsky, it assesses raging debates about whether mind and language are centred in heart or brain, brain or nervous-muscular system, and whether they are innate or learned, individual or social. This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students in historical linguistics, cognitive linguistics, language evolution and the philosophy of language. (shrink)
The field of “business for peace” recognizes the role that businesses can play in peacebuilding. However, like much of the discussion concerning business in conflict zones, it has prioritized the view of multinationals, often overlooking the role of indigenous local firms. The economic, social, and intergroup dynamics experienced by local businesses in conflict zones are understudied, with the current paper beginning by positioning micro- and small enterprises in the peacebuilding debate, then engaging with multidisciplinary works to understand how they foster (...) peace. Through a case study set in north Lebanon, we conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-three MSE owners in one industry who operate across sectarian divisions and with recently displaced Syrian refugees. Our findings indicate that local business activity can simultaneously promote peace and foster conflict, with peacebuilding improved when intergroup differences are reduced within the operating environment. Furthermore, the importance of economic development was elevated for local businesses, suggesting that peace through mechanisms such as social development, the rule of law, and training, is only achieved if economic needs are alleviated through these measures. We conclude by citing how contextual factors in conflict zones can enhance intergroup differences, and how resolving such factors can promote peacebuilding, with further empirical work needed in this area. (shrink)
The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)
Our topic suggests the existence of some uncertainty about the viability of natural theology, but it also invites a reassessment of the enterprise. The variety of current thinking in this area makes it difficult to find a single paradigm for structuring the discussion. The voices of such philosophers as Hartshorne, Kenny, Swinburne, Plantinga, Alston, and Joseph Owens, to mention but a few, do not form a chorus, even if they obviously share some of the same themes. The best procedure (...) is to set out from the traditional view about the aims and approaches of natural theology in an effort to determine whether this program can still be followed or whether some of its attendant problems may be cause for modifying it. (shrink)
Farmers’ markets have enjoyed a resurgence in the past two decades in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This increase in popularity is attributed to a host of environmental, social, and economic factors, often related to the alleged benefits of local food, alternative farming, and producer–consumer interactions. Steeped in tradition, there are also widely held assumptions related to the type of food and food vendors that belong at a farmers’ market in addition to the type of experience that (...) should take place. There remains a need to explore and analyze these fundamental aspects of the farmers’ market and to consider how they influence their formation and function. This paper argues that discourses of authenticity are central to the identity of the farmers’ market, and that they are constructed differently “from above” by those seeking to regulate farmers’ markets in particular jurisdictions and “from below” by managers, producers, and consumers at individual markets. A literature-based discussion is complemented and grounded by consideration of institutional statements regarding authenticity and of key results from a survey of managers, food vendors, and customers at 15 farmers’ markets in Ontario, Canada. It is demonstrated that while the general discourse about authenticity at the farmers’ market is built around strict, almost ideological assumptions about the presence of “local food” and those who produce it, community-level responses reflect considerable diversity in the interpretation and composition of the farmers’ market. It is suggested that a binary view of authenticity, where some farmers’ markets are cast as “real” and others presumably not, is highly problematic as it tends to ignore a large and important middle ground with multiple identities. (shrink)
The American Constitution held out the hope that ordinary people were capable of deciding their own fates, and in doing so it immeasurably elevated the dignity of common people. The organization and interplay of the parts that comprise the whole American government exist to provide people the opportunity to govern themselves and, at the same time, reveal the limits of democratic self-rule. The forgetting of these limits is not only destructive to the constitution but the nation as a whole.
This article looks at two sorts of conceptual work in Cristina Rocha’s John of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing : theoretical appliqué and comparative contextualization. The first involves using an ad hoc set of concepts to set out series of partial interpretations. Despite not offering one unified interpretation, this approach has the advantages of respecting the complexity of the case and indicating a range of relevant interpretative pathways. The second involves the standard work, in the study of (...) religion, of placing the religious movement or other object of study in relation to its religious landscape, influences and competitors, by comparing and contrasting beliefs and practices. Though the book would be better if both of these dimensions of conceptual work had been pushed further, Rocha’s theoretical appliqué is worth considering for its value as a model for other work. The goal of this article is to highlight the value of theoretical appliqué and to suggest how it could be done effectively. (shrink)
