Large-scale transnational land acquisition of agricultural land in the global south by rich corporations or countries raises challenging normative questions. In this article, the author critically examines and advocates a human rights approach to these questions. Mutually reinforcing, policies, governance and practice promote equitable and secure land tenure that in turn, strengthens other human rights, such as to employment, livelihood and food. Human rights therefore provide standards for evaluating processes and outcomes of transnational land acquisitions and, thus, for determining whether (...) they are ethically unacceptable land grabs. A variety of recent policy initiatives on the issue have evoked human rights, most centrally through the consultation and negotiation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests concluded in 2012. However, a case of transnational land appropriation illustrates weak host and investor state enforcement of human rights, leaving the parties to in interaction with local groups in charge of protecting human rights. Generally, we have so far seen limited direct application of human rights by states in their governance of transnational land acquisition. Normative responses to transnational land acquisition—codes of conduct, principles of responsible agricultural investment or voluntary guidelines—do not in themselves secure necessary action and change. Applying human rights approaches one must therefore also analyze the material conditions, power relations and political processes that determine whether and how women and men can secure the human rights accountability of the corporations and governments that promote large-scale, transnational land acquisition in the global south. (shrink)

This new anthology includes both classic and contemporary readings on the methods and scope of science. Jeffrey Foss depicts science in a broadly humanistic context, contending that it is philosophically interesting because it has reshaped nearly all aspects of human culture—and in so doing has reshaped humanity as well. While providing a strong introduction to epistemological and metaphysical issues in science, this text goes beyond the traditional topics, enlarging the scope of philosophical engagement with science. Substantial introductions and critical questions (...) are provided for each reading. (shrink)

Addresses the concept of truth in Chinese Daoist philosophy and ritual. Through wide-ranging research into Daoist ritual, both in history and as it survives in the present day, shows that the concept of true reality that informs this tradition posits being as a paradox anchored in the inexistent Way"--Provided by publisher.

We propose the FoodSmart City framework as a transdisciplinary avenue to promote sustainable seafood consumption. We argue that a change in human seafood consumption towards eating at lower trophic levels may be helped by discovering forgotten cultural practices and tapping into locally-sourced marine resources. We set out a framework of knowledge exchange and production between academia, businesses, and civil society to promote and assist healthy and ecologically sustainable living using digital tools and intangible cultural heritage while engaging with innovative chefs (...) and educationalists. The framework targets Dublin City, Ireland, but may potentially be replicated in other contexts. (shrink)

Disintegration and mechanisation.--Sacrifice and atonement.--Communion and the community.--The life-mass and the death-mass.--Life's clair-obscure.

The noted psychologist, Doreen Kimura, has argued that we should not expect to find equal numbers of men and women in various professions because there is a natural sexual inequality of intellect. In rebuttal I argue that each of these mutually supporting theses is insufficiently supported by the evidence to be accepted. The social and ethical dimensions of Kimura's work, and of the scientific study of the nature-nurture controversy in general, are briefly discussed.

Boyer & Lienard's (B&L's) explanation of ritualized behavior is plausible because it fits so well with elementary facts about evolution of plasticity in our behavioral repertoire. Its scope, however, may be broader than its authors explicitly admit. Science itself may be illuminated as ritual behavior. Science, like other rituals, can sustain both healthy and pathological forms. (Published Online February 8 2007).

This book is open access under a CC BY license. The first of its kind, this 'Report' gives an overview of the humanities worldwide. Published as an Open Access title and based on an extensive literature review and enlightening interviews conducted with 90 humanities scholars across 40 countries, the book offers a first step in attempting to assess the state of the humanities globally. Its topics include the nature and value of the humanities, the challenge of globalisation, the opportunities offered (...) by the digital humanities, variations in funding patterns around the world, and the interaction between humanities and society. Despite the stereotypical view of humanists as scholars locked away in their ivory towers, the picture that emerges from this report is that they are deeply committed to the social value of their work and appreciate the long-term importance it has for addressing global challenges. The report will be of interest not only to researchers and students in the humanities themselves, but also to administrators and funders. (shrink)

This volume on anthropology and authority in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) offers its reader nineteen timely discussions of two fundamental categories pertaining to the literary, philosophical, and theological production of this prominent 19th century Danish thinker, whose vast influence upon 20th century intellectual life continues to grow as the new millennium approaches. The volume's nineteen contributors - from Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Italy, and the United States - inquire into such complex problematics in Kierkegaard's oeuvre as (...) the interrelationship between the human, the divine, and the spiritual; between the secular and the Christian; between human and Christian love; between state and church institutions and the single individual of faith; and between this individual's concern for quality in civic and religious life and the quantitative forces of modern society's masses and crowds. Special attention is given to the indisputable authority of God, Christ, and the apostles as opposed to the debatable authority, or non-authority, of the author. Of particular interest is the nexus between Kierkegaard's existential and religious concerns, on the one hand, and his intricate textual conceptions, multifarious poetic strategies, and various means of pseudonymous and indirect communication, on the other. Between the covers of Anthropology and Authority some chapters seek to refine received knowledge of Kierkegaard in such disciplines as theology and moral philosophy. Conversely, other chapters submit rather postmodern critiques of the author's stylistic and rhetorical devices. A summary assessment of the nineteen contributions would fail to recognize this considerable methodological and theoretical diversity. Instead, the reader's access to the smorgasbord of insights has been facilitated by an introduction in which one of the American editors briefly outline the individual contributions on a general historical and intellectual background. Altogether, the probing insights of Anthropology and Authority go to the core of Søren Kierkegaard's authorship. Individual chapters either update previous responses to the many challenges presented by this work, or the chapters face new challenges and/or present critical challenges on their own. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Kierkegaard's impact on creative writers worldwide. Traditional attempts to identify his individual “influence” have increasingly yielded to an interest in “intertextuality,” a more socially oriented take on authorial interrelationships, overcoming the narrow specificity of “influence,” while sometimes tending to be overly broad and general instead. Concurrently, Kierkegaard's role as a literary writer has recently been favored over his role as a Christian thinker, although by no means exclusively so. Altogether, intertextual reception of his corpus significantly extends his (...) literary profile as an existential storyteller, while also engaging in a multifaceted dialogue about both humanism and anti‐humanism. (shrink)

This paper presents an interpretation of Husserl''s phenomenological epoché or bracketing ( Einklammerung), which makes it possible to compare his position with philosophical programs developed within the framework of modern analytical philosophy. At the same time it asks in what sense Husserl''s phenomenology is a form of idealism or exceeds the traditional discussion of idealism versus realism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Title Index to Daoist CollectionsPoul AndersenTitle Index to Daoist Collections. By Louis Komjathy. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2002. Pp. ii + 216.Title Index to Daoist Collections by Louis Komjathy provides a combined index to the titles of the works contained in seven of the most important collections of Daoist texts. In addition to the Ming dynasty Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong reign period, Zhengtong daozang—first printed in (...) 1444-1445, with a supplement printed in 1607—the collections include the Daoist manuscripts found in Dunhuang (published by Ōfuchi Ninji in 1979), Daozang jiyao (1906), Daozang jinghua lu (1922), Daozang jinghua (1963) (volume titles only), Zangwai daoshu (1992-1995), and Qigong yangsheng congshu (1990).Part 1 of the book consists of separate Chinese-character indexes to the book titles in each of these collections, arranged in the order of their appearance in the respective collections and with reference to their sequential numbering, volume number, and starting-page number in one edition of the collection (pp. 29-107). Part 2 is a combined pinyin index to all of these titles (as well as to abbreviated versions of some titles), arranged alphabetically and cross-referenced with the character indexes (pp. 109-211). In addition, the book contains two appendixes: (1) a Chinese-character index to the titles of the texts included in the sixteen volumes of the above-mentioned Daozang jinghua that happened to be available to the author, [End Page 407] according to whom the complete collection (of 107 volumes) is not to be found in any major North American library, and (2) a Chinese-character index to the book titles in the Daozang xubian, a collection of twenty-three internal alchemy works published by Min Yide in 1834 (pp. 213-216). The titles contained in these appendixes are not included in the pinyin index.The book is beautifully produced and conveniently organized, and it will no doubt prove to be a useful reference tool for students involved in the study of Daoism based on primary sources. Apart from the Zhengtong daozang, none of the collections have been indexed with a proper numbering system before, and the fact that they are provided here with a combined index has the advantage of allowing the researcher to get an immediate overview of the available versions of any text that is included in these collections. It should be noticed, however, that the usefulness of the combined index is somewhat reduced by the lack of a consistent analysis of the individual titles of texts in terms of their most significant parts, and the absence of systematically sound choices concerning what abbreviated versions of the titles to include in the index. In this respect, the present book remains infinitely inferior to the existing standard concordance to the titles of the Zhengtong daozang, published by Kristofer Schipper in 1975 and included as a supplement volume in the most widely used sixty-volume reprint of the Canon (issued in Taiwan in 1977). As noted by the author of the present book, this concordance has the advantage over the earlier Harvard-Yenching Index from 1935 in that it lists the titles of the Daozang under every possible character. The inclusion of abbreviated versions of titles in the present index clearly is intended to make up for the absence of this kind of systematic indexing. It is equally clear, however, that this measure does not completely resolve the problem, and that consequently the present book in no way supersedes the earlier index as far as the basic Ming dynasty Canon (representing some 40 percent of the totality of Chinese-character indexes in the book) is concerned. A couple of random spot checks using abbreviated titles brought this out to this reviewer.The book is a reference tool—that is, not for systematic reading—so in order to put it to a test I chose to look up a couple of titles with which I have recently been concerned in the course of my research on Daoism. The first was the Wucheng fu (shang)jing, one of the key texts of the early Lingbao tradition (promulgated around 400 C.E.). The result was disappointing, as the combined... (shrink)

Das Grab des Königs Ninetjer in Saqqara: Architektonische Entwicklung frühzeitlicher Grabanlagen in Ägypten. By Claudia M. Lacher-Raschdorff. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Kairo, Archäologische Veröffentlichungen, vol. 125. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. Pp. 295, 44 pls., plans. €247.

The political liberalism of professors—an important occupational group and anomaly according to traditional theories of class politics—has long puzzled sociologists. This article sheds new light on the subject by employing a two-step analytic procedure. In the first step, we assess the explanatory power of the main hypotheses proposed over the last half century to account for professors’ liberal views. To do so, we examine hypothesized predictors of the political gap between professors and other Americans using General Social Survey data pooled (...) from 1974–2008. Results indicate that professors are more liberal than other Americans because a higher proportion possess advanced educational credentials, exhibit a disparity between their levels of education and income, identify as Jewish, non-religious, or non-theologically conservative Protestant, and express greater tolerance for controversial ideas. In the second step of our article, we develop a new theory of professors’ politics on the basis of these findings (though not directly testable with our data) that we think holds more explanatory promise than existing approaches and that sets an agenda for future research. (shrink)

We respond to Jack Vromen’s critique of our discussion of the missing micro-foundations of work on routines and capabilities in economics and management research. Contrary to Vromen, we argue that inter-level relations can be causal, and that inter-level causal relations may also obtain between routines and actions and interactions; there are no macro-level causal mechanisms; and on certain readings of the notion of routines and capabilities, these may be macro causes.