This paper explores two philosophical issues related to Darwin’s treatment of the sterile castes of insects in the Origin of Species. The first aim is to review the scholarly articles on the subjects of Darwin’s acceptance or rejection of natural selection acting at levels above that of the individuals. The second aim is to see whether Darwin’s position on group selection informs in any way contemporary debates on group selection and multilevel selection. The paper arrives at the conclusion that, there (...) is significant evidence in the Origin that Darwin did see natural selection acting at the level of the community, but it is hard to say anything more than evolutionary biology is compatible with multilevel selection if we take this point into account. Many present-day individualistic and pluralistic accounts of natural selection that seek legitimacy from Darwin’s views on the subject open up to charges of anachronism. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on the “olfactory cortices–hippocampal formation” axis, proposed by Aboitiz et al. to be that network which allowed the first mammals to create elaborate representations of space. I argue here that this neural axis can be extended to a triangle of structures which also includes the orbital cortex.

[t. 1.] Filosofii︠a︡ -- [t. 2.] Mifologii︠a︡--religii︠a︡-- [t. 3]. Literatura. I︠A︡zyk i pisʹmennostʹ -- [t. 4]. Istoricheskai︠a︡ myslʹ. Politicheskai︠a︡ i pravovai︠a︡ kulʹtura -- [t. 5]. Nauka, tekhnicheskai︠a︡ i voennai︠a︡ myslʹ, zdravookhranenie i obrazovanie -- [t. 6]. Iskusstvo.

In an increasingly urbanized world, construction industry is called upon to serve the needs of human society, such as environmental protection and safety in terms of infrastructure. In this context, a sustainable and ethical development means a close connection between buildings and environment. This connection can be achieved through, for example, the concept of ecological concrete or green concrete, as it is often called. The conventional process of obtaining cement and mineral aggregates from the concrete composition generates pollution, especially through (...) greenhouse gas emissions. Also, one should not ignore the fact that extraction of the raw materials affects the habitats of the sites and of the neighboring areas. When construction materials are questioned, the ethical issues lay not in the means of expression, but mainly in the means of production. More to the point, the present contribution aimed to find solutions for enhancing the adhesion of vegetal aggregates with the cement matrix, in order to obtain a material with optimal mechanical properties, which is valued as an ethical approach of building industry. Results showed that plant aggregates can be used to obtain a building material which can be improved by using partial substitution of cement by silica fume, fly ash, or by using additives and that green concrete as an environmentally friendly material offers the alternative for lower energy use and fewer CO2 emissions. Marketers must understand not only the advantages of these green materials, but also that they have an ethical commitment to provide consumers with environmentally friendly materials. (shrink)

Hinduism is above all a way of life and a philosophy of life. Looking more closely, we can see that in India life and religion are inseparable. The objective of this paper is to analyze the influences of religion, in time, on the economic growth of India, a continuously changing country. The Indian economy is an economy of contrasts due to its caste system and its legal aspects that govern the society and which have been imposed since ancient times. After (...) analyzing the Hindu culture and civilization and seeing the impact of religion in the social sphere, we can say that, indeed, Hinduism represents a part of the socio-economic system, a way of life. This country was contemporary with the glory of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome and it saw all of them disappear. No doubt that it is hiding a secret in its way of life and in its spirituality. The secret of life without death, which India knows, results from the primacy of the spirituality. (shrink)

Drawing on a corpus of reader comments posted to the news reports about the “Colectiv” fire on the Gândul daily website, this article investigates how “the void signifier” People is disputed between ideological and mythical thought in a moment of political and societal crisis. The comments were made by readers to a series of 578 news reports and editorials. Our study aims to inquire whether the figure of the People keeps its resourcefulness in an online conversational discourse regime. Particularly, we (...) are interested in the way common people devise themselves as the People by mobilizing a specific political mythology established by both lay and religious tradition, and recently, by an utopian approach to empowering technological revolutions. The transfer of power between the theological concept of God and the secular concept of People is analyzed in a cultural and linguistic frame: 1. the Romanian Orthodox tradition and the modern developments of the Byzantine concept symphonia ; 2. the semantic and syntactic specificities of the Romanian language within online media. As shown by the analysis, the static, passive and dynamic renditions of Popor [People] pertain to a narrative of political transcendence. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the rise of anti-politics as a political phenomenon but beyond this new rejection of the political class there has long existed, an albeit marginal, deeper challenge to the political itself. Identifying the work of Derrida as 'a politics' and that of Baudrillard as 'transpolitics' this book charts the convergences and divergences in their respective approaches. Among the topics treated are questions of the media and representation.

Migration is one of the social processes that have influenced and are still deeply influencing current Romanian society, given that millions of Romanian citizens have relatives who had longer or shorter migration projects. Migration leads to socio-economic and cultural changes, which cause temporary or permanent changes in the human reality, the way of life and the personality of those who leave, but also of those who remain at home. Certainly, migration affects, first of all, the family, changing both its structure (...) and functionality. The temporarily disintegrated family has become one of the forms towards which the evolution of the family is moving, raising a multitude of problems aimed at a new lifestyle and interaction, new demands in the line of adjustment and accommodation both within and outside the family. The phenomenon of emigration in order to find a workplace affects both the family, as a social nucleus, and the individual as part of the family structure. Migration has a major impact on the relationship between spouses, on the parent-child relationship, on parental behavior, on destiny, in general. Although the family remains central to the existence of individuals in a transnational situation, its cohesion is not self-evident; it becomes a problem of community integration. Following the way in which the perspective on the family has changed in the context of migration, the study aims to identify and analyze the most important transnational practices through which family cohesion was maintained in the case of Romanian migration. To better understand this process of maintaining transnational family cohesion, we use an analytical model in four dimensions (social, positional, cultural and identity). (shrink)

Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind, A Philosopher's Economist: Hume and the Rise of Capitalism, Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press, 316 p., e-book.

The paper presents a cross-country analysis of the second generation of currency boards introduced in three East European countries: Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania. We focus on their institutional, legal and political characteristics which are closely associated with the operation of the automatic mechanism of currency boards. The presence of an automatic mechanism within the framework of the currency board is often cited as a major counterpoint to the “discretion and subjectivity” of a classical central bank. Since there is no precise (...) definition of automatic mechanisms in the literature, we define it as: “the presence of a positive cointegration relationship between the balance of payments and the reserve money and absence of discretionary variables in the model.” When discretionary variables are present in the model in one form or another, we may speak of a “mechanism for adjustment through discretion – conscious or unconscious.” Within the framework of the second generation of currency boards, we reduce the channel of discretion to the presence of atypical balance sheet items and employment of a number of monetary policy instruments. We seek in this article to compare currency board automatic mechanism in Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania.L’article procède d’une analyse transversale par pays de la deuxième génération des “bureaux d’émission” introduits dans trois pays de l’Europe de l’Est. L’accent est mis sur les caractéristiques institutionnelles, juridiques et politiques qui sont étroitement associées à l’opération du mécanisme automatique des bureaux d’émission. L’existence d’un mécanisme automatique dans la structure d’un bureau d’émission est souvent mise en avant comme l’argument majeur à l’encontre de la “discrétion” et la “subjectivité” d’une banque centrale classique. Parce qu’il n’existe aucune définition précise du mécanisme automatique dans la littérature, nous la définissons comme “la présence d’une relation positive de cointégration entre la balance des paiements et les réserves monétaires et l’absence de variables discrétionna- ires dans le modèle”. Quand des variables discrétionnaires sont présentes dans le modèle sous une forme ou une autre, nous pouvons parler d’un “mécanisme d’ajustement discrétionnaire – conscient ou inconscient”. Au sein de la structure de la deuxième génération des bureaux d’émission, la discrétion se réduit à la présence de postes atypiques dans le bilan et à l’emploi d’un certain nombre d’instruments de politique monétaire.L’article propose une comparaison du mécanisme automatique en Bulgarie, Estonie et Lithuanie. (shrink)

Moral sentimentalism can be defined as the philosophical theory according to which emotions are the source of our value judgements, in general, and of our moral judgements, in particular. It follows that, from a historical and conceptual point of view, moral sentimentalism has emerged and developed in opposition to moral rationalism, according to which reason allows us to formulate and understand value judgments from a psychological point of view and is also the source of our axiological knowledge from an epistemic (...) point of view. In this article we present the theoretical issues related to the sentimentalist approach to morality and evaluative judgments, starting from the diverse theories of the classical representatives of sentimentalism, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume and Smith, and especially the three theses they defended: psychological perspective, the theory of moral sense and the theory of moral feelings. I also argue that the first moral sentimentalism emerged from the confrontation of three distinct aporia: the first aporia refers to the conceptualization of emotions and emotional states; the second deals with the possibility of axiological knowledge; and the third refers to the nature and existence of values. Finally, we are interested in the birth of sentimentalism in order to highlight a series of difficulties inherent in this theoretical approach and which we find today in contemporary moral sentimentalism. The aim is to highlight the conceptual and argumentative tensions that were at the heart of sentimentalism at its emergence. (shrink)

The philosophic notion of human vulnerability cannot be pinpointed as such in the corpus of classic philosophy. Nevertheless, death and suffering as essential philosophical and theological problems make reference to the dimension of vulnerability inherent to the human condition. Since times immemorial, the fear of death, the avoidance of suffering, or the crisis situations of human existence have laid at the basis of philosophical and religious systems. According to Freud, in the futile pursuit of happiness humans often face misery, which (...) stems from a suffering that threatens them from three different directions: their own body, the outside world, and the relationships with other people. Starting from this angle, the present article furthers the notion of vulnerability by identifying its archetypal themes in relation to human life and its conditions of existence. Two main concepts will guide this study of human vulnerability: a vulnerability inherent to human subjectivity, and one consubstantial to the process of human socialisation. For Levinas, vulnerability has become alike an obsession for others, a full responsibility, which leads to the following formula: it is only a vulnerable person who can love one’s neighbour. In accordance with Habermas, the manner in which a human being leaves natural law and accesses social justice is here re-examined, as it stands for a vulnerability structurally determined by the forms of socio-cultural life. (shrink)

In today's complex world, influenced by information bombardment and rapid technological development, professional training cannot remain limited to the idea of passing knowledge. There is a need to shift the students’ view towards the true spirit of research, which targets the scientific thought on certain social phenomena, and to form critical thinking skills to produce effective individuals in the current labour market, who not only receive information, but go further and analyze problems in the workplace, presenting solutions to identified problems (...) and applying these solutions in concrete situations. For this reason, critical thinking is considered a top skill, being highly appreciated by the business world and organizations. But to think critically is a capacity that does not develop by itself, it must be practiced and encouraged in a correct learning environment. Critical thinking has become one of the most important educational goals, which must be achieved by the different educational institutions through all the programs studied by students in the different educational cycles, but also by students in the university environment. Starting from this, this article analyses the types of specific actions which target the introduction of the abilities of critical thinking in the training activities in Romania, and in society in its entirety, by identifying the setbacks encountered, and the limits of such an endeavour. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFrom his Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy to the address given on the fiftieth anniversary of Le monde diplomatique just before he died in 2004, Derrida made constant ref...

This paper guides the Romanian reader through a variety of discussions surrounding the central themes of Michel Henry’s latest books (C’est moi la Vérité,1996; Incarnation, 2000). Basically, it aims to present the principles of the phenomenology of Life in Henry’s thought, focusing on the status of the apparition, and of truth, both of which are to be understood not as the ontic relation of adaequatio, but as the self-revelation of Life in the immanence of each non-intentional experience. My review-article draws (...) upon the problem of the ‘original impression’, a crucial stage in shifting the theme of the ‘transcendental body’ and of the ‘self-affection’. At this point, my interpretation suggests that Henry’s phenomenology of affection would require further stark distinctions like the one between the ‘corporeal pain’ and the ‘transcendental sufferance’, very significant from the Christian viewpoint, too. I also try to suggest the importance of Henry’s phenomenology of Life for a radical understanding of bioethics. In addition, I tackle Michel Henry’s strong critique of the autistic sexual love, which sounds strikingly similarly to those raised up, respectively, by S. Kierkegaard and J.-L. Marion. Eventually, my essential claim is that one should reconsider very seriously the importance of the Christian mystical theology (best represented by the Patristic tradition) in order to get an adequate understanding of Michel Henry’s radical phenomenology of Life. (shrink)

A collective volume in memoriam Mihail Radu Solcan.

This article assesses the relevance of Wittgenstein’s late philosophy for the study of online forms of communication. In particular, the article deals with the appropriateness of using the concept of language game for the purpose of describing what happens in a virtual community. Testing Wittgenstein’s concept of language game in online context, we also analyse the language practices of one specific virtual community (patterns of communication, style, roles of members, internal organization of this ‘form of life’).

ABSTRACT: This paper underlines the relationship between rhetoric and postmodernism. In lack of a unique definition, postmodernism is seldom described as a non-centred set of rhetorical, critical and discursive practices; rhetoric offers a fertile frame for the interpretation of postmodernism. In my approach, I analyze both the type of rhetoric through which we can grasp the current of postmodernism and the use of rhetoric inside the postmodern discursiveness. The former was born out of its relationship with modernism and from this (...) standpoint I am interested in investigating the rhetorical relevance of themes such as rupture, continuity, palimpsest, anamnesis, incompleteness. The latter is discussed mainly by focusing on the effects of the repositioning of rhetoric in postmodernism. These analyses create a cluster of motifs that constitute the nucleus of the contemporary rhetoric imaginary. RESUMO. Este trabalho evidencia a relação entre a retórica e o pós-modernismo. Na ausência de uma definição única, o pós-modernismo é muitas vezes como sendo um conjunto não centrado de práticas retóricas, críticas e discursivas. Dessa maneira, a retórica oferece um ambiente fértil de uma adequada interpretação do pós-modernismo. Dentro da minha abordagem, analisei tanto o tipo de retórica através do qual podemos entender o movimento pós-moderno, quanto o uso de retórica dentro da discursividade pós-moderna. O primeiro tipo de retórica nasceu do relacionamento com o modernismo e, nesse contexto, é investigada a relevância retórica de alguns temas como a ruptura, continuidade, palimpsesto, anamnese, incompletude. O segundo tipo de retórica é investigado especialmente através da concentração sobre os efeitos do reposicionamento da retórica no pós-modernismo. Essas análises se amparam em um conglomerado de razões que constitui o núcleo do imaginário da retórica contemporânea. (shrink)

À partir des contextes homériques, cette recherche situe l’arrière-plan de la formule ἢ οἵη parmi les genres du discourslittéraire de l’oralité archaïque. Son emploi est réservé aux récits enchâssés ou aux propos qui thématisent l’exemplum d’une femme . L’étude caractérise ensuite la structure narrative et les particularités d’une diction traditionnelle, dans les cinq livres du Catalogue « hésiodique » des femmes. Par l’entremise de nœuds conflictuels, le réseau des généalogies déployait la mythopoïèse d’une Hellade légendaire, avec ses héroïnes et leurs (...) descendants, demi-dieux ou personnages fabuleux, qui sont souvent les éponymes ou les hypostases personnifiées des régions et des cités.The Typology of the Ehoae Catalogues. A Thematised Genealogical Network. The aim of this paper is to determine the typological framing of the “Hesiodic” Catalogue of women. The formula ἢ οἵη is submitted to a thorough examination, with the background of its Homeric use, most of the time introducing an embedded narration. Furthermore, various arguments foster the reconstruction of an archaic stage in the oral transmission of the Ehoae , perceived as an independent genre or – in any case – singled out as a bundle of legendary topoi. At a certain point , the ‘Hesiodic’ poem succeeded in interweaving an overall story of the dispersed heroic lineage, in order to expatiate through the Achaean past using an original narrative device: the catalogic digest of stories of heroines and demigods referring to various eponymic entities of the demes. (shrink)

The characterisation of Derrida’s politics as a seeking for the “lesser violence” has become an almost paradigmatic interpretation. Yet the phrase _la moindre violence_ appears only in the early essay “Violence and Metaphysics” and its meaning is not as straightforward as might initially seem. I will argue that it is a mistake to take this expression to summarise the political import of this essay let alone of deconstruction more generally. What Derrida repeatedly concerns himself on that occasion is not “the (...) lesser violence” but “worse violence” and “the worst violence,” terms that appears several times. This will be seen to be as a prefiguring of how, from the early 1980s on, following engagements with Plato and Lyotard, Derrida repeatedly names and elaborates “the worst” as that which we should seek to avoid. In order to uncover the politics of deconstruction, I will examine what Derrida has to say about “the worst” as well as what is said in the secondary literature, for it is also a term around which a number of unfortunate misinterpretations have arisen. In conclusion, it will be remarked that with the late coinage of the term _aimance_ Derrida makes clear his close proximity to the ethics of Levinas and his affirmation of an aspiration to nonviolence in the relationship with the other. (shrink)

This article aims to explore two different but interrelated problems. The first objective, the more abstract one, is to discuss the plausibility of fusionism as a theoretical project of bridging the philosophical gap between libertarianism and free-market conservatism. Our thesis is that while fusionism could succeed, as a strategic alliance, in promoting specific policies, the differences between libertarianism and conservatism are irreconcilable at the level of fundamental intellectual assumptions. More precisely, starting from Hayek’s objections to conservatism, we argue that the (...) crucial divide is that between two conceptions about the prerequisites for social order. The second objective is to show how the differences between the policy prescriptions endorsed by conservatives and libertarians within the Tea Party (mainly with regard to religion-related issues) are illustrative for the theoretical point defended in the first sections. (shrink)

Diabetes is epidemic and many people cannot afford insulin, a lifesaving medication, as its price has increased by almost 160 percent in the past five years.1 To help subsidize the cost of insulin, one of the staff members at my hospital would like to give patients copayment coupons provided to her by pharmaceutical companies. I advised my colleague to stop distributing these branded coupons, as they promote particular pharmaceutical companies. This practice is not consistent with the policy on interaction with (...) industry established by the Johns Hopkins Health System. Yet at the same time, I want my patients to be able to afford their insulin so they can treat their diabetes. I truly believe in utilitarianism. Would temporarily subsidizing patients’ insulin make me and my staff better healthcare providers? Would this minimize my patients’ financial burden? Would giving away medications coupons help pharmaceutical companies influence me as a prescriber? This challenge created a personal internal debate and profound moral distress. (shrink)

A number of histories of circumcision have recently been written and in them the case of A. E. Housman, along with a number of others, has acquired a certain prominence. This paper will reconsider the existing evidence regarding Housman’s circumcision and the various interpretations of it in the secondary literature before going on to examine a number of overlooked sources. While this writing around Housman’s circumcision is not without positive results, it will be suggested via a consideration of Jacques Derrida’s (...) testimony regarding his own circumcision that the historian of sexuality needs also to contend with an inherent negativity and loss. The testimony provided by a recently uncovered poem on circumcision will prompt the suggestion that we should be wary of overemphasizing the individual example. In conclusion, the paper will argue that the problematic of Housman’s particular case has pertinence because in regard to individual experience we can only ever write around the history of circumcision. (shrink)

The recent removal of the Richard Prince’s artwork Spiritual America from the Tate Modern’s “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” exhibition is the most recent and high-profile case of a work of art being withdrawn from a gallery in the UK on the grounds that it has allegedly breached legislation concerning indecent images of children. Surprisingly, the issue has been hardly considered by academics from law departments and is almost entirely ignored by philosophers specializing in aesthetics and ethics. This (...) essay considers the ethics of images of children by drawing from continental ethics and aesthetics, and by engaging with the only significant treatment of the subject undertaken by a philosopher, namely Peter J. King’s “No Plaything.” This paper shows that a continental perspective can open up positions that King’s ‘objectivist utilitarianism’ is oblivious of. In particular, the essay draws from Derrida’s reading of Kant’s Third Critique and the former’s quasi-conception of “the frame” in The Truth in Painting and “droit de regard” in Right of Inspection. In distinction to King, this paper engages with the actual existing reality of currently enacted laws and their application in particular cases such as in Spiritual America. I will begin with art ‘in the frame’ as the colloquial expression has it, art wrongfully and unjustly accused by the police. I will proceed via an examination of the question of the frame in Kant and Derrida, to demonstrate a need to reclaim the ethical status of works of art. The core procedure of my paper will be a ‘rediscovery’ of Spiritual America as the Kantian example that allows us to find the law. My argument will be that no work of art or image can of itself be decent or indecent. (shrink)

Lasse Thomassen has previously published a number of books including the introductory Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed and edited The Derrida-Habermas Reader, as well as a collecti...

Words Fail offers a numbers of formulations concerning representation which are never developed into a sustained argument. The book also fails to account reliably for the thought of the three thinkers the author proposes to address. In particular, despite claiming to draw on the work of Jacques Derrida, Dickinson speaks quite remarkably of “true presence” and “pure presentation.”.

Martin Heidegger notoriously linked industrial agriculture and the Holocaust in a lecture given at Bremen while he was still banned from teaching under denazification measures. What has largely been overlooked is that Derrida also compared the two: in 1997, in an address given at the third Cerisy conference devoted his work. This apparent repetition will be understood within the broader framework of his reading of Heidegger and, in particular, with what the latter says concerning technology. It will be argued that (...) while Derrida views industrial agriculture as a series of technical issues, each demanding of particular attention, Heidegger sees its only as an instance of Technik. Most significantly, while the latter’s philosophy offers no resources for treating it as demanding an ethical response, for Derrida our relation to animals should be guided by compassion. (shrink)