Ziel dieses Bandes ist es, die Aktualität der Kritischen Theorie Adornos, Horkheimers und Habermas' für die heutige Zeit auszuloten. Es geht einerseits darum, die erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen der Kritischen Theorie neu zu überdenken, andererseits darum, neue Varianten dieser Theorie auf Gesellschaft, Kultur und Politik anzuwenden. Vor allem Bereiche wie Wissenschaftstheorie und Medienwissenschaft haben in den letzten Jahrzehnten neue Entwicklungen durchgemacht und fordern den kritischen Geist heraus. Mit Beiträgen u.a. von Roger Behrens, Wolfgang Detel, Udo Göttlich, Hans-Herbert Kögler, Gerhard Schweppenhäuser, Heinz Steinert, (...) Christine Resch und Tanja Thomas. (shrink)

With the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), global researchers were confronted with major challenges. The German National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) was launched in fall 2020 to effectively leverage resources and bundle research activities in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the setup phase of NAPKON as an example for multicenter studies in Germany, highlighting challenges and optimization potential in connecting 59 university and nonuniversity study sites. We examined the ethics application (...) process of 121 ethics submissions considering durations, annotations, and outcomes. Study site activation and recruitment processes were investigated and related to the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. For all initial ethics applications, the median time to a positive ethics vote was less than two weeks and 30 of these study sites (65%) joined NAPKON within less than three weeks each. Electronic instead of postal ethics submission (9.5 days (Q1: 5.75, Q3: 17) vs. 14 days (Q1: 11, Q3: 26), p value = 0.01) and adoption of the primary ethics vote significantly accelerated the ethics application process. Each study center enrolled a median of 37 patients during the 14-month observation period, with large differences depending on the health sector. We found a positive correlation between recruitment performance and COVID-19 incidence as well as hospitalization incidence. Our analysis highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the federated system in Germany. Digital ethics application tools, adoption of a primary ethics vote and standardized formal requirements lead to harmonized and thus faster study initiation processes during a pandemic. (shrink)

This study investigated Belgian and Dutch parental opinions on confidentiality and consent regarding medical decisions about adolescents. Through an online survey, we presented six cases (three on confidentiality, and three on consent) to 1,382 Belgian and Dutch parents. We studied patterns in parental confidentiality and consent preferences across and between cases through binomial logistic regressions and latent class analysis. Participants often grant the right to consent for a treatment to the adolescent, but the majority diverges from the adolescent’s preferences regarding (...) confidentiality. More educated participants would rather not be informed about cases regarding a sexually transmitted disease or depression than lower educated participants. Further analysis shows that participants’ preferences correspond to authoritative (47%), permissive (30%) and authoritarian (17%) parenting styles. Belgian and Dutch parents are willing to grant some degree of autonomy, but they want to be informed about specific health issues. Parental views on confidentiality and granting consent appear to mirror existing parenting styles. (shrink)

Peter Byrne tells the story of Hugh Everett III (1930-1982), whose "many worlds" theory of multiple universes has had a profound impact on physics and philosophy. Using Everett's unpublished papers (recently discovered in his son's basement) and dozens of interviews with his friends, colleagues, and surviving family members, Byrne paints, for the general reader, a detailed portrait of the genius who invented an astonishing way of describing our complex universe from the inside. Everett's mathematical model (called the "universal wave (...) function") treats all possible events as "equally real", and concludes that countless copies of every person and thing exist in all possible configurations spread over an infinity of universes: many worlds. Afflicted by depression and addictions, Everett strove to bring rational order to the professional realms in which he played historically significant roles. In addition to his famous interpretation of quantum mechanics, Everett wrote a classic paper in game theory; created computer algorithms that revolutionized military operations research; and performed pioneering work in artificial intelligence for top secret government projects. He wrote the original software for targeting cities in a nuclear hot war; and he was one of the first scientists to recognize the danger of nuclear winter. As a Cold Warrior, he designed logical systems that modeled "rational" human and machine behaviors, and yet he was largely oblivious to the emotional damage his irrational personal behavior inflicted upon his family, lovers, and business partners. He died young, but left behind a fascinating record of his life, including correspondence with such philosophically inclined physicists as Niels Bohr, Norbert Wiener, and John Wheeler. These remarkable letters illuminate the long and often bitter struggle to explain the paradox of measurement at the heart of quantum physics. In recent years, Everett's solution to this mysterious problem - the existence of a universe of universes - has gained considerable traction in scientific circles, not as science fiction, but as an explanation of physical reality. (shrink)

Contemporary epistemology of religion may conveniently be treated as adebate over whether evidentialism applies to thebelief-component of religious faith, or whether we should insteadadopt a more permissive epistemology. Here evidentialism is theinitially plausible position that a belief is justified only if``it is proportioned to the evidence''. For example, supposea local weather forecaster has noticed that over the two hundred yearssince records began a wetter than average Winter is followed in 85% ofcases by a hotter than average Summer. Then, assuming (...) for simplicitythat the records are reliable, the forecaster is justified in believingwith less than full confidence that this Winter, which is wetter thanaverage, will be followed by a hotter than average Summer. Butevidentialism implies that it would not be justified to have fullbelief, that is belief with 100% confidence. Again, consider someonewho has a hunch that this Summer will be hotter than averagebut cannot justify that hunch further. Hunches are not consideredevidence, so the belief is not considered justified. If, however, thehuncher can cite a good track record of hunches about the weather thathave turned out correct then the belief would be consideredjustified. For although hunches are not considered evidence, memoriesabout past hunches are, as are the observations that corroborated thepast hunches. (shrink)

Janina Bauman was a sociologist of everyday life. Her autobiographical texts, Winter in the Morning (1986), A Dream of Belonging (1988), and the synthetic volume Beyond These Walls (2006), manage a kind of personal poignancy combined with world-historic content and attention to the detail of everyday life that sets her work apart. This essay responds to these attributes and offers a contribution to her remembrance as a writer, an actor in and observer of everyday life in Warsaw and Leeds (...) across the 20th century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Capitalism in “Wealthy Hellas”? PETER W. ROSE Josiah ober has taken on the very ambitious task of analyzing a vast swath of ancient Greek history— precisely the periods—as his opening quotation from Byron (1) implies—most admired by those who have devoted any time to the study of Greek antiquity: Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! Though fallen, great!1 At the same time, again (...) as suggested by the repetition of Byron’s lines (206, also mentioned on 293), Ober’s book falls within the large category of celebratory works about ancient Greece—like Werner Jaeger’s once popular three volumes of Paideia or, at the outset of the twentieth century, Alfred Zimmern ’s The Greek Commonwealth.2 It does not, on the other hand, fit in with a plethora of relatively recent, relatively short (as opposed to George Grote’s twelve volumes) histories of Greece aimed at the potentially lucrative textbook market for general more comprehensive overviews of Greek civilization.3 As such, the basis on which Ober celebrates ancient Greece merits close scrutiny. history and the overriding thesis ober’s conception of “history” here is heavily weighted towards the theoretical elaboration and justification of an Josiah Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (Princeton University Press 2015), hardback, 415 pages. A truncated, arbitrarily reorganized version of this review appeared in New Left Review 103 (2017) 139–49. Thanks to Daniel Tompkins for full comments on an earlier version, and to Peter Green and Stephen Hodkinson for clarifications on specific points. arion 26.3 winter 2019 overriding thesis. Five initial chapters of a total of eleven are devoted to that task before five chronologically focused chapters, which offer a cursory romp through Greek history from ca. 1000 BCE to 334 BCE and some brief suggestions about the period down to the decisive takeover of Greece by Rome, usually dated to 31 BCE. The volume is capped by a final summary and overview chapter. Ober is admirably forthright about his agenda. Immediately in his preface he declares, “in states where citizens keep rulers in check, public authority protects individual rights and the rule of law pertains most of the time. These political conditions promote economic growth. The conjunction of democratic politics and a strong economy is, in practice, available only to affluent citizens of highly developed countries.... Democracy and growth define the normal, although not yet the usual, conditions of modernity” (xiii, my emphasis).4 This somewhat utopian conception of the present-day interface of democratic institutions and economic growth—posited as an unquestioned desideratum in sublime disregard of “ecology” in the literal sense5—underlies Ober’s whole project. While acknowledging the obvious negatives of ancient slavery,6 “denial of rights to women, and glorified war,” he argues “if we are interested in the conjunction of political and economic exceptionalism, we must start somewhere, and classical Greece was the society in which the wealth-and-democracy package first emerged in a form that can be studied in depth” (xv). Athenian democracy has been at the center of Ober’s impressive scholarly career at least since the publication of his study of fourth-century BCE Athenian rhetoric, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton 1989). “Athens” or “democracy” have featured in the titles of all his subsequent book publications7—not to mention the extraordinary output of more specialized essays in multiple venues. One overriding question about his latest book is whether the unique phenomenon of Athenian democracy is being unduly generalized to “Classical Greece.” 142 capitalism in “wealthy hellas”? The special focus of his interest here in ancient Greece, the “conjunction of political and economic exceptionalism,” is further clarified in his opening chapter which begins with the quotation from Byron cited above: “Byron’s vision of greatness was inspired by ancient Greek cultural and intellectual achievement: art and architecture, literature, visual and performance art, scientific and moral thought.... Hellas was great because of a cultural accomplishment that was supported by sustained economic growth. That growth was made possible by a distinctive approach to politics” (1–2). Greek cultural achievements, however, are bracketed (and in practical terms dismissed)8 in favor of the “wealth-anddemocracy... (shrink)

Der Mensch hat in den verschiedenen Bereichen des Alltagslebens, der Institutionen, der Wissenschaften und der Philosophie hochst verschiedene Verhaltnisse zu Tieren ausgebildet. Fur praktisch alle besteht eine Asymmetrie zwischen Mensch und Tier. Als Gegenstand des Wirtschaftens, der Wissenschaften und der Kunste unterliegen die Tiere menschlicher Verantwortung. Umgekehrt konnen sie weder Wissenschaften hervorbringen noch im wortlichen Sinne Verantwortung fur den Menschen ubernehmen. Hier bleiben unter anderem zeitgenossische Deutungen naturwissenschaftlicher Theorien zu bedenken. Der vorliegende Band reflektiert aus Sichtweise von neun wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen (...) die verschiedenen Mensch-Tier-Verhaltnisse. Er dokumentiert eine Vortragsreihe von Mitgliedern der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Goethe Universitat Frankfurt am Main im Winter 2012-2013. (shrink)

The paper deals with Kant’s writing Announcement of the Program of his Lectures for the Winter Semester, 1765–1766. It aims to analyse the text on two levels. The first concentrates on the systematic character of the writing in Kant’s overall heritage. The second aim of the paper is to point out the importance of the writing to Kant’s philosophy of culture and his pedagogical theory.

SinceDaphnis and Chloeis a work of fiction, modern criticism has paid little attention to the topographical details of Lesbos which Longus scatters through his work. Today a preoccupation with biographical or topographical realism in literature is out of fashion, and Longus's world has in any case been described, by one of his most percipient modern critics, as ‘un monde des plus irréels’. Yet just as Longus's women reveal a striking blend of fictional romance and social realism, so the background to (...) his narrative, however much adorned with items of baroque fancy, nevertheless remains solidly based on the geography and ecology of Lesbos itself. The cave of the Nymphs, with its grotto, its spring, and its clutter of statues, may derive from the pastoral property-closet; but Longus's description of Mytilene agrees with those given by Strabo and Pausanias, and many other details—the trailing vines, the wine, the flourishing orchards, the prevalence of hares for hunting—suggest familiarity with the terrain. The description in the proem of the grove of the Nymphs, thick with flowers and trees and watered by a single spring, at once calls to mind the site of the great temple at Mesa, in the Kalloni plain. Most striking of all, since often used as evidence for Longus'signoranceof Lesbos, is his vivid description of a heavy snowfall, much at odds with later travellers' accounts of the climate's perennial mildness. But in the winter of 1964, when I was living on the island, snow lay three feet deep in the chestnut forest above Aghiassos, while Methymna was icebound, with frozen taps and sub-zero temperatures, for ten days, so that all the eucalyptus trees outside the schoolhouse died. The worst winter in living memory was that of 1953/4; the mountains are frequently snowbound. Longus, like Alcaeus, who also describes such conditions, knew what he was talking about. (shrink)

A photographer and a geographer explore where the pavement ends. Nevada's enigmatic Black Rock country, despite its apparent silence and isolation, is actually an area where natural forces are ceaselessly restless and life in many forms has endured for millennia. Its haunting landscape has been the focus of study and contemplation by scientists, explorers, outdoors aficionados, and artists. In ""Black Rock,"" photographer Peter Goin and geographer Paul F. Starrs explore this fascinating place from the viewpoints of their respective disciplines. (...) The Black Rock, a desert realm almost the size of Delaware but scarcely a hundred miles north of Reno, embraces mile-high vertical mountains and one of the earth's flattest, most barren salt pans, boiling hot springs and freezing winter cold, plants that have evolved to survive the severest drought and lush pockets of rich grasses. Its bewildering environments startle our senses with a raw physical intensity that comes through in Goin's eloquent photographs and Starrs's richly informed text. We observe the region from numerous perspectives - the Black Rock at ground level, from the skies above, in the geology below; witness the shaping roles of water, wind, and geothermal action in shaping it; and view the effects of human hands, from ancient Native Americans to nineteenth-century explorers, ranchers, and miners, up through the congregants at today's Burning Man festivals. The result is a brilliant duet of visual and literary commentary on a region of stunning paradoxes and constant change and activity, where need and curiosity encounter the daunting, implacable forces of nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 67.4 (2006) 675-696 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]History of Religion Becomes Ethnology: Some Evidence from Peiresc's AfricaPeter N. Miller Bard Graduate CenterAbstractThe relationship between history of religion and ethnology on the one hand, and antiquarianism and them both, on the other, lie at the core of this essay. These lines of inquiry come together in the work of Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), (...) the intellectually adventurous Provençal late humanist. Peiresc's correspondence with a renegade in Tunis, an adventurer in Ethiopia, and a missionary once based in Guinea provided him with remarkably direct information about the customs and practices—the moeurs—of contemporary sub-Saharan Africans. The content of these letters has not found its place in histories of anthropology or histories of antiquarianism.I.Bound up amidst Peiresc's copies of his letters to the Paduan antiquary Lorenzo Pignoria from the winter of 1615–16 is a text of four sides entitled, in large letters, "Delli Popoli della China" and continuing, in smaller ones, "written by P. Ioannes Pietro Maffei History of the Indies, Fr. Antonio di Saint Roman, in the History of the East Indies, Fr. Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza Augustino, in the books on China, and others." 1 The reading notes [End Page 675] that follow are interesting for one reason: though labelled "Delli Popoli della China" they are almost entirely about religion in China. At this stage of Peiresc's thinking at least, history of religion seems interchangeable with ethnography.In his letter to Pignoria of 4 January 1616, Peiresc acknowledges having time to page through ("di transcorrere un poco") Maffei, Gonzales, and Saint Roman where he found some information about figures they had discussed, and also about artificial grottoes used for domestic refrigeration, "which I did not note when I read it the first time." He asked if Pignoria wouldn't mind inquiring as to whether there was a more precise impression of a particular Chinese plaque or medallion—Pignoria had sent him one but Peiresc pronounced it "not as exact as I would like." 2Peiresc begins with the gods that were worshipped (these included deceased parents and friends, as well as the occasional living person) and auguries. This then leads to mention of the clothing and hair styles of those priests making offerings to the gods. Some of this information was derived from that octagonal medallion. Peiresc also noted down the presence of a vase, as if for libation, and other instruments for offerings.These authors, he continued, observed that the Chinese revered the God of Heaven above all the others. Peiresc recorded that Gonzalez mentioned that he was indicated by use of the first letter of the alphabet, that this character looked a bit like "AF," that it was called "Guant," that he was honored with a solemn festival every near year, at the new moon in March, with vocal and instrumental music during which his priests applied themselves for an entire day to a board groaning with meat, poultry, fish, and fruits (no wonder the earlier reference to the gluttony of the priests). For the greater veneration of the King he was called the "Son of Heaven."Mention of the King led to discussion of the monthly festivals in the provinces when priests bore a portrait of the King, on gold, through the streets with great reverence. But then, citing from Maffei, Peiresc proceeded to jot down observations made about Chinese seaside towns and the domestic interior. This, in turn, led to some observations about dining—and, therefore, feasting—practices.Finally, Peiresc returned to the aforementioned medallion, whose details now seemed to him to represent just such an honorific feast. But he was especially interested in the practice of indicating the name of God with a single Chinese character, or cipher. This reminded him, he wrote, that the [End Page 676] Basilidian gnostics, as recorded in Epiphanius, represented the god of heaven with the seven Greek vowels AEHIOUY. He... (shrink)

The phrase, "state of nature", has been used over centuries to describe the uncultivated state of lands and animals, nudity, innocence, heaven and hell, interstate relations, and the locus of pre- and supra-political rights, such as the right to resistance, to property, to create and leave polities, and the freedom of religion, speech, and opinion, which may be reactivated or reprioritised when the polity and its laws fail. Combining intellectual history with current concerns, this volume brings together fourteen essays on (...) the past, present and possible future applications of the legal fiction known as the state of nature. Contributors are: Daniel S. Allemann, Pamela Edwards, Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Mary C. Fuller, David Singh Grewal, Francesca Iurlaro, Edward J. Kolla, László Kontler, Grant S. McCall, Tom Sparks, Benjamin Straumann, Karl Widerquist, Sarah Winter, and Simone Zurbuchen. (shrink)

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the (...) playwright and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

The suggested citation for this white paper is: University of Waterloo Working Group on Bibliometrics, Winter 2016. White Paper: Measuring Research Outputs through Bibliometrics, Waterloo, Ontario: University of Waterloo.

This reissue of his collection of early essays, Logico-Linguistic Papers, is published with a brand new introduction by Professor Strawson but, apart from minor ...

Les falsifications idéologiques qui voient dans la puissance le seul déchaînement de la nature, des pulsions et des forces de domination, mobilisent la volonté et les instincts les plus agressifs pour les mettre au service de leur idéal de maîtrise. Vouloir la domination, telle est bien l'interprétation de la puissance que se font les impuissants. Cette interprétation a pour elle la force de l'évidence car c'est toujours la maîtrise, comme fonctionnement institué de la puissance, que nous percevons d'un œil grossier. (...) Les lectures réactives de Nietzsche se trouvent ainsi piégées lorsqu'elles mettent en avant certaines " valeurs nietzschéennes ". Elles ne font que révéler l'idéal de maîtrise qui anime leurs interprétations de la volonté de puissance. Elles oublient de se voir fonctionner en Nietzsche. Inutile pour cette raison de chercher la Grande Politique de Nietzsche dans un programme ou une institution. L'institution des valeurs se fait toujours au détriment de la puissance active d'évaluation individuelle. Alors que les lectures réactives de Nietzsche réduisent l'expression de cette puissance d'évaluation à un non-lieu, les lectures actives de Nietzsche en font une force de libération. De cette force, recouverte ou occultée par les plus grands interprètes de Nietzsche, dépend l'actualité critique d'une pensée pour tous, une pensée dont personne ne peut se prévaloir d'en être le seul maître. (shrink)

A complete system of classical Aristotelian logic intended for honors high school and college.

Ohne Rücksicht auf disziplinäre Schranken bringt dieses Buch verschiedene nicht-reduktionistische Lerntheorien miteinander ins Gespräch. In einem offenen Diskurs, der die Konzepte zueinander in Beziehung setzt, werden die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven kritisch abgewogen und hinsichtlich ihrer Stärken und Schwächen diskutiert.

Delo se loteva vprašanja aktualnosti pojma subjekta v filozofiji in politiki skozi analizo tistih avtorjev, ki so ga domnevno najbolj radikalno pokopali: pokaže, da vznik radikalno novega in problematika subjekta zavzema osrednje mesto v Deleuzovi filozofiji, kakor tudi v Lyotardovi pozni misli posvečeni praznini, v Foucaultovi obravnavi biopolitike in biooblasti, v delu Negrija in Hardta o Imperiju, ter nazadnje v Badioujevi predelavi temeljnih filozofskih kategorij biti, resnice in subjekta, na osnovi katerih je dandanes znova možna renesansa filozofije. Ta ima po (...) Badiouju štiri razsežnosti, ki se v delu Vznik subjekta nenehno prepletajo: »V osnovi želja filozofije implicira razsežnost upora: ni filozofije brez nezadovoljstva mišljenja v njegovem soočenju s svetom, kakršen je. Pa vendar želja filozofije vključuje tudi logiko: to je, prepričanje v moč argumenta in uma.«. (shrink)

Ernst Fraenkel, geboren 1898, prägte die deutsche Politikwissenschaft der jungen Bundesrepublik. Er gab ihr eine interdisziplinäre Ausrichtung und gilt als Vater der Pluralismustheorie in Deutschland. Das Buch schildert sein bewegtes Leben, das mit der deutschen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts eng verknüpft ist.

Micheline Sauvage of the French National Scientific Research Centre traces for us the story of this great Athenian and great philosopher, as seen both by his contemporaries and by the European philosophers who followed after him.

While Hermann Levin Goldschmidt didn’t read Yiddish anarchists, there seems to have been a convergent evolution in their thinking. Goldschmidt’s looking up to Jewish lore as a source of liberating creativity is commonly encountered in Yiddish anarchist texts. His view of action as a constant response to internal and external challenges in the struggle for an open future is developed by Isaac Nachman Steinberg on the basis of nineteenth-century vitalism. Goldschmidt’s theory of anarchist individualism as willed self-limiting solidarity has a (...) compelling parallel in Hillel Solotaroff’s view of history. His use of impressionism and photography to eternalize the immediacy of human actuality is akin to Rudolf Rocker’s championing of decadent literature. In both cases, the goal of anarchism is not a dictatorship of the former downtrodden, but a continuous and contradictory evolution of freedom in ever-changing contexts. (shrink)

Metz holds that we can use African communal ethics to constitute global economic practices such as appropriation, production, distribution and consumption in such a way that promotes harmonious relations. In this article, I will show that Metz’s reformist approach to constituting the global economic practices is problematic as it fails to deal with the fundamental problem that pertains to a racialised world order that is structurally configured by coloniality of being. I will show that reformist approaches such as Metz’s use (...) of African communal ethics to constitute global economic practices in a way that promotes harmonious relations are undesirable attempts that are opposed and curtailed by a structural racialised logic/ontology of the world that governs and supervises the evolution of the world economic structures and practices in a way which undermines harmonious relations and in a way which causes economic marginalisation and impoverishment of historically disadvantaged indigenous Africans. (shrink)

The present ecological crisis imposes a rethinking of the relation between the human being and the rest of nature. Traditional theological articulations of this relation have proven problematic where they foster separatism and anthropocentrism, which give a false report on the relation and have a negative impact on thinking and acting in relation to nature. One place to begin rethinking is through an exploration of the affirmation that the human being is “made in the image of God,”imago dei. Some ways (...) of construing the theological meaning of this designation are more helpful than others. Science has recognized the extent to which the human being is not only dependent upon but even emergent from nature. We are made of the same “stuff” that makes up the rest of the universe. We are nature. The place of the human being is much more modest, recent, and precarious than usually acknowledged in theological reflection. New ways of interpreting our role within nature must evolve out of this new understanding. Philip Hefner has proposed that we think of the human being as created co-creator. His is a distinctive and promising contribution. This essay responds with both affirmations and friendly questions. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Karl Marx’s acerbic observation in the opening lines of The Eighteenth Brumaire that “all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur the first time as tragedy, the second as farce” may be profitably applied to a reconsideration of literary farce sui generis, a genre represented in this article by a long-neglected work of utopian fiction, Archibald Marshall’s Upsidonia (1915). Although Upsidonia’s current disregard is arguably undeserved, the article’s chief interest is not to reclaim the novel on aesthetic (...) grounds but to illuminate the mechanics of what Marx would call its “serious buffoonery.” In its persistent reversal of capitalist principles and relations, Upsidonia naturally invites readers to revisit Marx, whose mordant gambit may serve as a key to Marshall’s own farcical plot and praxis, rooted in return and repetition, the essential maneuvers of farce itself. (shrink)

This introduction by leading scholar Peter Trawny is the first to tackle the Black Notebooks, whose recent publication revealed the extent of Heidegger's anti-Semitism. Trawny directly confronts the most problematic aspects of Heidegger's thought, also fully surveying his work, from early writings to his magnum opus, Being and Time.

In this paper, I will argue that ageing can be construed as disease. First, the concept of disease is discussed, where the distinction is made between two lines of thought, an objectivist and a subjectivist one. After determining the disease conception to be used throughout the argument, it is proposed that senescence could be seen as disease. Three common counterarguments are discussed, none of which appears strong enough to effectively counter the advocated view. In the third section, two potential implications (...) of the view advocated here will be briefly touched upon. These are the quest for a cure or treatment for ageing and the general attitude towards the elderly. It is concluded that, utilizing an objective disease concept, ageing could be seen as a disease. None of the considered counterarguments packs enough of a punch to discard this. The implications are complex and intertwined, but need not be negative. (shrink)