The study of letters, by Norman Foerster.--Language, by J.C. McGalliard.--Literary history, by René Wellek.--Literary criticism, by Austin Warren.--Imaginative writing, by W.L. Schramm.--Notes.--Bibliography (p. 239-255).

The authors of this study deplore the present gulf that lies between the creative writer and the scholar. In five stimulating essays on letters, language, literary history, criticism, and imaginative writing, they challenge our prevailing pedantries and offer a program for revitalizing literary scholarship in the universities. Authoritative and brilliantly written, this book anticipates a fuller place for humane learning in American life. Originally published in 1941. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in (...) digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

Engineered microbes are of great potential utility in biotechnology and basic research. In principle, a cell can be built from scratch by assembling small molecule sets with auto‐catalytic properties. Alternatively, DNA can be isolated or directly synthesized and molded into a synthetic genome using existing genomic blueprints and molecular biology tools. Activating such a synthetic genome will yield a synthetic cell. Here we examine obstacles associated with this latter approach using a model system whereby a donor genome from H. influenzae (...) is fragmented, and the pieces are then modified and reassembled stepwise in an E. coli host cell. There are obstacles associated with this strategy related to DNA transfer, DNA replication, cross‐talk in gene regulation and compatibility of gene products between donor and host. Encouragingly, analysis of gene expression indicates widespread transcription of H. influenzae genes in E. coli, and analysis of gap locations in H. influenzae and other microbial genome assemblies reveals few genes routinely incompatible with E. coli. In conclusion, rebuilding and booting a genome remains a feasible and pragmatic approach to creating a synthetic microbial cell. BioEssays 29:580–590, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The new methods, the tone, and new taste are clearly discernible first in the early articles and books of John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, R. P. Blackmur, Kenneth Burke, and Yvor Winters, and somewhat later in Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and William K. Wimsatt. . . . Still, something tells us that there is some sense in grouping these critics together. Most obviously they are held together by their reaction against the preceding or contemporary critical schools and views (...) mentioned before. They all reject the kind of metaphorical, evocative criticism practiced by the impressionists. Tate, Blackmur, Burke, and Winters contributed to a symposium highly critical of the neo-Humanists, and others voiced their rejection elsewhere. They all had no use for Mencken and Van Wyck Brooks, particularly after Brooks became a violent enemy of all modernism. Furthermore, they were almost unanimous in their rejection of Marxism, with the single exception of Kenneth Burke, who in the thirties passed through a Marxist phase and, anyhow, after his first book moved away from his neo-critical beginnings. What, however, in the American situation mattered most was that they were united in their opposition to the prevailing methods, doctrines, and views of academic English literary scholarship. There, in a way the younger generation may find it difficult to realize, a purely philological and historical scholarship dominated all instruction, publication, and promotion. I remember that when I first came to study English literature in the Princeton graduate school in 1927, fifty years ago, no course in American literature, none in modern literature, and none in criticism was offered. Of all my learned teachers only Morris W. Croll had any interest in aesthetics or even ideas. Most of the New Critics were college teachers and had to make their way in an environment hostile to any and all criticism. Only Kenneth Burke was and remained a freelance man of letters, though he taught in later years occasionally at Bennington College and briefly at the University of Chicago. But he very early deserted the New Criticism. It took Blackmur, Tate, and Winters years to get academic recognition, often against stiff opposition, and even Ransom, R. P. Warren, and Cleanth Brooks, established in quieter places, had their troubles. Ransom's paper "Criticism, Inc." pleaded for the academic establishment of criticism, and thanks to him and others criticism is now taught in most American colleges and universities. But it was an uphill fight. I still remember vividly the acrimony of the conflict between criticism and literary history at the University of Iowa, where I was a member of the English Department from 1939 to 1946. René Wellek, Sterling Professor Emeritus of comparative literature at Yale University, is the author of Theory of Literature and of A History of Modern Criticism, 1750-1950. He has contributed "Notes and Exchanges Between René Wellek and Wayne C. Booth" and "A Rejoinder to Gerald Graff" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

"Six Metaphysical Meditations" by René Descartes (translated by William Molyneux). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone (...) in a high-quality digital format. (shrink)

Vaccines can be an appropriate tool for combating pandemics. Accordingly, expectations were high when the first Covid-19 vaccines were administered. However, even though the vaccines have not met these high initial expectations, vaccine manufacturers and their investors were making large profits, while most of the associated economic risks have remained with the taxpaying public. Thus, this paper applies the concept of social impact bonds to mass vaccination programs by conceptualizing vaccine impact bonds (VIBs) as an alternative to the advance purchase (...) agreements (APAs) for Covid-19 vaccines. Rather than rewarding vaccine manufacturers and their investors based on the quantity of doses distributed, VIBs intend to link the real-world vaccine impact to the financial returns of vaccine manufacturers and their investors. This paper indicates that VIBs can theoretically shift the economic risks of mass vaccination programs from the taxpaying public to private investors, thereby aligning commercial and public interests. However, it also identifies several major weaknesses such as the complexity of defining and evaluating the vaccine impact as well as the inherent trade-off between relieving taxpayers (through VIBs) and allowing innovation. As these substantial drawbacks outweigh the theoretical strengths of VIBs, this paper calls for further research in order to identify better alternatives to the Covid-19 vaccine contracts. (shrink)

Joel Feinberg : In Memoriam. Preface. Part I: INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1. Joel Feinberg: A Logic Lesson. 2. Plato: "Apology." 3. Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy. PART II: REASON AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1. The Existence and Nature of God. 1.1 Anselm of Canterbury: The Ontological Argument, from Proslogion. 1.2 Gaunilo of Marmoutiers: On Behalf of the Fool. 1.3 L. Rowe: The Ontological Argument. 1.4 Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Five Ways, from Summa Theologica. 1.5 Samuel (...) Clarke: A Modern Formulation of the Cosmological Argument. 1.6 William L. Rowe: The Cosmological Argument. 1.7 William Paley: The Argument from Design. 1.8 Michael Ruse: The Design Argument. 1.9 David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. 2. The Problem of Evil. 2.1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Rebellion. 2.2 J. L. Mackie: Evil and Omnipotence. 2.3 Peter van Inwagen: The Argument from Evil. 2.4 Michael Murray and Michael Rea: The Argument from Evil. 2.5 B. C. Johnson: God and the Problem of Evil. 3. Reason and Faith. 3.1 W. K. Clifford: The Ethics of Belief. 3.2 William James: The Will to Believe. 3.3 Kelly James Clark: Without Evidence or Argument. 3.4 Blaise Pascal: The Wager. 3.5 Lawrence Shapiro: Miracles and Justification. 3.6 Simon Blackburn: Infini-Rien. Part III. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: ITS GROUNDS AND LIMITS. 1. Skepticism. 1.1 John Pollock: A Brain in a Vat. 1.2 Michael Huemer: Three Skeptical Arguments. 1.3 Robert Audi: Skepticism. 2. The Nature and Value of Knowledge. 2.1 Plato: Knowledge as Justified True Belief. 2.2 Edmund Gettier: Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? 2.3 James Cornman, Keith Lehrer, and George Pappas: An Analysis of Knowledge. 2.4 Gilbert Ryle: Knowing How and Knowing That. 2.5 Plato: "Meno". 2.6 Linda Zagzebski, Epistemic Good and The Good Life. 3. Our Knowledge of the External World. 3.1 Bertrand Russell: Appearance and Reality and the Existence of Matter. 3.2 René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy. 3.3 John Locke: The Causal Theory of Perception. 3.4 George Berkeley: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge. 3.5 G. E. Moore: Proof of an External World. 4. The Methods of Science. 4.1 David Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 4.2 Wesley C. Salmon: An Encounter with David Hume. 4.3 Karl Popper: Science: Conjectures and Refutations. 4.4 Philip Kitcher: Believing Where We Cannot Prove. Part IV: MIND AND ITS PLACE IN NATURE. 1. The Mind-Body Problem. 1.1 Brie Gertler: In Defense of Mind--Body Dualism. 1.2 Frank Jackson: The Qualia Problem. 1.3 David Papineau: The Case for Materialism. 1.4 Paul Churchland: Functionalism and Eliminative Materialism. 2. Can Non-Humans Think? 2.1 Alan Turing: Computing Machinery and Intelligence. 2.2 John R. Searle: Minds, Brains, and Programs. 2.3 William G. Lycan: Robots and Minds. 3. Personal Identity and the Survival of Death. 3.1 John Locke: The Prince and the Cobbler. 3.2 Thomas Reid: Of Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity. 3.3 David Hume: The Self. 3.4 Derek Parfit: Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons. 3.5 Shelly Kagan: What Matters. 3.6 John Perry: A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Part V: DETERMINISM, FREE WILL, AND RESPONSIBILITY. 1. Libertarianism: The Case for Free Will and Its Incompatibility with Determinism. 1.1 Roderick M. Chisholm: Human Freedom and the Self. 1.2 Robert Kane: Free Will: Ancient Dispute, New Themes. 2. Hard Determinism: The Case for Determinism and its Incompatibility with Its Incompatibility with Any Important Sense of Free Will. 2.1 James Rachels: The case against Free Will. 2.2 Derk Pereboom: Why We Have No Free Will and Can Live Without It. 3. Compatibilism: The Case for Determinism and Its Compatibility with the Most Important Sense of Free Will. 3.1 David Hume: Of Liberty and Necessity. 3.2 Helen Beebee: Compatibilism and the Ability to do Otherwise. 4. Freedom and Moral Responsibility. 4.1 Galen Strawson: Luck Swallows Everything. 4.2 Harry Frankfurt: Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. 4.3 Thomas Nagel: Moral Luck. 4.4 Susan Wolf: Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility. Part VI: MORALITY AND ITS CRITICS. 1. Changes to Morality. 1.1 Joel Feinberg: Psychological Egoism. 1.2 Plato: The Immoralist’s Challenge. 1.3 Friedrich Nietzche: Master and Slave Morality. 1.4 Richard Joyce: The Evolutionary Debunking of Morality. 2. Proposed Standards and Right of Conduct. 2.1 Russ Shafer-Landau: Ethical Subjectivism. 2.2 Mary Midgley: Trying Out One’s New Sword. 2.3 Aristotle: Virtue and the Good Life. 2.4 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. 2.5 Plato: Euthyphro. 2.6 Immanuel Kant: The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative. 2.7 J.S. Mill: Utilitarianism, Chapters 2 and 4. 2.8 W. D. Ross: What Makes Right Acts Right? 2.9 Hilde Lindemann: What Is Feminist Ethics? 3. Ethical Problems. 3.1 Kwame Anthony Appiah: What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For? 3.2 Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality. 3.3 John Harris: The Survival Lottery. 3.4 James Rachels: Active and Passive Euthanasia. 3.5 Mary Anne Warren: The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. 3.6 Don Marquis: Why Abortion Is Immoral. 4. The Meaning of Life. 4.1 Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus. 4.2 Richard Taylor: The Meaning of Life. 4.3 Richard Kraut: Desire and the Human Good. 4.4 Leo Tolstoy: My Confession. 4.5 Susan Wolf: Happiness and Meaning. 4.6 Thomas Nagel: The Absurd. (shrink)

Tout ce qui est dans l'oeuvre de Jacques, nous l'avons d'abord vécu à l'état de difficulté vitale et d'expérience, - les questions de l'art et de la morale, de la philosophie, de la foi, de la prière, de la contemplation. Cela nous a d'abord été donné à vivre, à chacun selon sa nature et la grâce de Dieu », notait Raïssa en 1934. Cette correspondance confirme le propos, qui nous fait pénétrer dans « l'amour fou » de deux vies données (...) l'une à l'autre, et la trame quotidienne de leur fécondité de pensée et de « grandes amitiés ».Leur conversion en 1906 scelle la vocation d'un couple venu déjà un peu d'ailleurs : lui, 18 ans, romantique, révolutionnaire et dreyfusard en diable, en rupture avec les élites républicaines laïques dont il est issu ; elle, 17 ans, comme sortie d'une peinture de Chagall, juive et slave en quête à la Sorbonne d'une nouvelle patrie spirituelle. Les premiers regards portés sur eux discernent déjà leur promesse : « Je les trouve absolument dignes l'un de l'autre ; ce sont même de si beaux types d'humanité qu'il faut se féliciter de les voir se rechercher. On ne trouve pas si souvent de couple bien assorti ; celui-là me paraît devoir donner un exemple lumineux. »Ils s'écrivent abondamment dès que les aléas de la vie les séparent et ce premier tome les suit dans la découverte d'eux-mêmes. Dans la discontinuité des circonstances, leur chemin métaphysique et mystique progresse, tandis que se révèle, derrière chaque ouvrage, chaque combat, chaque accompagnement spirituel, le secret de leur rayonnement : au fil de ces 712 lettres, c'est d'abord une histoire d'amour, dans un respect tendre et sacré de la singularité de l'autre. (shrink)

The middle of the second until the middle of the first century BCE is one of the most creative periods in the history of human thought, and an important part of this was the interaction between Roman jurists and Hellenistic philosophers. In this highly original book, René Brouwer shows how jurists transformed the study of law into a science with the help of philosophical methods and concepts, such as division, rules and persons, and also how philosophers came to share the (...) jurists' preoccupations with cases and private property. The relevance of this cross-fertilization for present-day law and philosophy cannot be overestimated: in law, its legacy includes the academic study of law and the Western models of dispute resolution, while in philosophy, the method of casuistry and the concept of just property. (shrink)

The theologian Hugo Rahner argued that the homo ludens is a man of ‘Ernstheiterkeit’, a person who can smile under tears but also recognizes the gravity in all earthly cheerfulness. The primary aim of this study was to test the validity of this notion: Do homines ludentes exist? Two hundred sixty-three adult subjects were measured for seriousness and cheerfulness and playfulness. Results provided unequivocal support for Rahner's thesis. Numerous subjects scored high in both seriousness and cheerfulness thus confirming the existence (...) of homines ludentes. It was further found that these subjects were among those scoring highest in playfulness. Subjects scoring high in cheerfulness but low in seriousness were, however, even more closely associated with playfulness. The scores for homines ludentes did not differ from the rest of the subjects in the creative and dynamic facets of playfulness. The importance of developing empirical research to investigate hypotheses derived from non-scientific concepts is discussed. (shrink)

According to the standard view on the issue, the habit of marking questions with a particular typographical sign in Greek and Latin script does not arise prior to the eighth or ninth century. This period is generally credited with the ‘invention’ of the question mark (excepting Syriac evidence, which points to the fifth and sixth centuries). The purpose of the present article is to correct this view. It argues that the first indication for the use of a typographical sign that (...) marks questions can actually be detected no later than during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 117–38), that is, more than half a millennium before the traditional date of the invention. The chief witness is Nicanor of Alexandria, who does not seem to have used question marks himself, but criticizes the misappropriation of another punctuation mark to that purpose. He thus indirectly testifies to the existence of question marks. Comparable traces can also be found later in the exegetical works of some Christian commentators. (shrink)

A concise summary of Nicanor’s theory of punctuation that has recently been discovered in a codex mixtus of the 15th century throws precious new light on a topic of some complexity. The general picture that emerges from the new extract does not substantially differ from that of the other known summary, which has been the starting point for all modern reconstructions of Nicanor’s theory. Therefore, these reconstructions need not be rewritten on a larger scale. The two summaries nevertheless display some (...) telling differences in how they explain and present the details, not least when read against the backdrop of Nicanor’s actual practice that can be derived from the relevant scholia to Homer. The purpose of the present article is to assess the new discovery especially with regard to these differences and their effects on how Nicanor’s theory is to be reconstructed. (shrink)

A situation, in which a finite set of players can obtain certain payoffs by cooperation can be described by a cooperative game with transferable utility, or simply a TU-game. A (point-valued) solution for TU-games assigns a payoff distribution to every TU-game. In this article we discuss a class of equal surplus sharing solutions consisting of all convex combinations of the CIS-value, the ENSC-value and the equal division solution. We provide several characterizations of this class of solutions on variable and fixed (...) player set. Specifications of several properties characterize specific solutions in this class. (shrink)

Exploring Ricoeur’s hermeneutic theory of interpretation as a method of analysing research texts Increasingly, researchers use hermeneutic philosophy to inform the conduct of interpretive research. Congruence between the philosophical foundations of a study, and the methodological processes through which study findings are actualised, obliges hermeneutic researchers to use (or develop) hermeneutic approaches to research interviewing and textual analysis. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides one approach through which researchers using hermeneutics can achieve congruence between philosophy, methodology and method.Ricoeur’s theory of (...) interpretation acknowledges the interrelationship between epistemology (interpretation) and ontology (interpreter). Also, Ricoeur notes the way interpretation moves forward from naive understanding, where the interpreter has a superficial grasp of the whole of the text, to deeper understanding, where the interpreter understands the parts of the text in relation to the whole and the whole of the text in relation to its parts (the hermeneutic circle). In this way, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation provides researchers with a method of developing intersubjective knowledge.Through exposition of the concepts of Ricoeur’s theory, which include distanciation, appropriation, explanation and understanding, guess, and validation, a hermeneutic approach to textual analysis is presented, discussed and critiqued. Examples from nursing research are also used to demonstrate points under discussion. It is suggested that, in conjunction with Gadamer’s hermeneutic of understanding, Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation warrants consideration as a method of textual analysis. (shrink)

Increasingly, nurses use the philosophy of hermeneutics, especially Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutics, to inform interpretive research. However, application of the work of these philosophers to interpretive nursing research has proved problematic as it fails to recognise, or act upon, obligations inherent in their work. Through a review of hermeneutically informed nursing research, methodological implications regarding the use of hermeneutic philosophy are examined in relation to: (i) the need to address forestructures and pre-understandings; (ii) checking interpretations with research participants; (iii) seeking (...) objectivity, consensus and accuracy in textual interpretation; (iv) evaluating interpretations; and (v) gaining entry into the hermeneutic circle. This review suggests that despite obligations inherent in Heideggerian and Gadamerian hermeneutic philosophy, nurses fail to actualise these obligations in their research. In following Heidegger, nurses need to make the scientific theme secure by working out their forestructures in terms of the phenomenon under investigation. Those following Gadamer need to accept that interpretation seeks to manifest textual meanings rather than individual ones. And, whether following Heidegger or Gadamer, the way to make manifest textual meanings is to engage with the text within the hermeneutic circle by continuing to address forestructures and pre-understandings and by considering their influences upon the research. (shrink)

Recurriendo a la predominancia que le brinda René Wellek y Austin Warren al aporte empírico y la indeterminación que se origina al plantear postulados teóricos en la Literatura, pretendo demostrar la inconsistencia con la que están configurados los personajes el Jaguar, el Poeta y el Esclavo de La ciudad y los perros, los cuales asumo para este estudio como tríada protagónica. La demostración se basará en hallar estadios y conductas de los cadetes para fundamentar que sus identidades son consuetudinariamente (...) variantes por la necesidad de alcanzar una posición significativa en entornos implicados con la violencia. En ese sentido, se designarán los valores convencionales para cada caso, sistematizados en gráficos de triángulos jerárquicos, de los que se observarán los recorridos (inicialmente, ascendentes por exigencia) que se efectúan en ellos, los mismos que concluirán indefectiblemente en repeticiones cíclicas y desestabilizadoras. (shrink)

The hexagonal structure for ‘the geometry of logical opposition’, as coming from Aristoteles–Apuleius square and Sesmat–Blanché hexagon, is presented here in connection with, on the one hand, geometrical ideas on duality on triangles (construction of ‘companion’), and on the other hand, constructions of tripartitions, emphasizing that these are exactly cases of borromean objects. Then a new case of a logical interest introduced here is the double magic tripartition determining the semi-ring ${\mathcal{B}_3}$ and this is a borromean object again, in the (...) heart of the semi-ring ${{\rm Mat}_{3}(\mathbb{B}_{\rm Alg})}$ . With this example we understand better in which sense the borromean object is a deepening of the hexagon, in a logical vein. Then, and this is our main objective here, the Post-Mal’cev full iterative algebra ${\mathbb{P}_4 = \mathbb{P}(\mathbb{F}_4)}$ of functions of all arities on ${\mathbb{F}_4}$ , is proved to be a borromean object, generated by three copies of ${\mathbb{P}_2}$ in it. This fact is induced by a hexagonal structure of the field ${\mathbb{F}_4}$ . This hexagonal structure is seen as precisely a geometrical addition to standard boolean logic, exhibiting ${\mathbb{F}_4}$ as a ‘boolean manifold’. This structure allows to analyze also ${\mathbb{P}_4}$ as generated by adding to a boolean set of logical functions a very special modality, namely the Frobenius squaring map in ${\mathbb{F}_4}$ . It is related to the splitting of paradoxes, to modified logic, to specular logic. It is a setting for a theory of paradoxical sentences, seen as computations of movements on the bi-hexagonal link among the 12 classical logics on a set of 4 values. (shrink)

Background: Treating medication-refractory freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease remains challenging despite several trials reporting improvements in motor symptoms using subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Pedunculopontine nucleus region DBS has been used for medication-refractory FoG, with mixed findings. FoG, as a paroxysmal phenomenon, provides an ideal framework for the possibility of closed-loop DBS.Methods: In this clinical trial, five subjects with medication-refractory FoG underwent bilateral GPi DBS implantation to address levodopa-responsive PD symptoms with open-loop stimulation. Additionally, PPN (...) DBS leads were implanted for CL-DBS to treat FoG. The primary outcome of the study was a 40% improvement in medication-refractory FoG in 60% of subjects at 6 months when “on” PPN CL-DBS. Secondary outcomes included device feasibility to gauge the recruitment potential of this four-lead DBS approach for a potentially larger clinical trial. Safety was judged based on adverse events and explantation rate.Findings: The feasibility of this approach was demonstrated as we recruited five subjects with both “on” and “off” medication freezing. The safety for this population of patients receiving four DBS leads was suboptimal and associated with a high explantation rate of 40%. The primary clinical outcome in three of the five subjects was achieved at 6 months. However, the group analysis of the primary clinical outcome did not reveal any benefit.Interpretation: This study of a human PPN CL-DBS trial in medication-refractory FoG showed feasibility in recruitment, suboptimal safety, and a heterogeneous clinical effect in FoG outcomes. (shrink)

The break necessary to establish a rigorous science of cultural works is something more and something else than a simple methodological reversal.1 It implies a true conversion of the ordinary way of thinking and living the intellectual enterprise. It is a matter of breaking the narcissistic relationship inscribed in the representation of intellectual work as a “creation” and which excludes as the expression par excellence of “reductionist sociology” the effort to subject the artist and the work of art to a (...) way of thinking that is doubly objectionable since it is both genetic and generic.It would be easy to show what the most different kinds of analysis of the work of art owe to the norms that require treating works in and for themselves, with no reference to the social conditions of their production. Thus in the now-classic Theory of Literature, René Wellek and Austin Warren seem to advocate “an explanation in terms of the personality and the life of the writer.” In fact, because they accept the ideology of the “man of genius” they are committed, in their own terms, to “one of the oldest and best-established methods of literary study”—which seeks the explanatory principle of a work in the author taken in isolation .2 In fact, this explanatory principle resides in the relationship between the “space” of works in which each particular work is taken and the “space” of authors in which each cultural enterprise is constituted. Similarly, when Sartre takes on the project of specifying the meditations through which society determined Flaubert, the individual, he attributes to those factors that can be perceived from that point of view—that is, to social class as refracted through a family structure—what are instead the effects of generic factors influencing every writer in an artistic field that is itself in a subordinate position in the field of power and also the effects specific to all writers who occupy the same position as Flaubert within the artistic field. 1. See Pierre Bourdieu, “Intellectual Field and Creative Project,” trans. Sian France, Social Science Information 8 : 89-119; originally published as “Champ intellectual et projet créateur,” Les Temps moderns no. 246 : 865-906. See also Bourdieu, “Champ du pouvoir, champ intellectual et habitus de classe,” Scolies 1 : 7-26, and Bourdieu, “The Genesis of the Concepts of Habitus and Field,” trans. Channa Newman, Sociocriticism no. 2 : 11-24.2. René Welleck and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature p. 69. Pierre Bourdieu holds the chair of sociology at the Collège de France and is director of the Centre de Sociologie européenne at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Among his most recent works are Distinction , Homo Academicus , and Choses Dites. (shrink)

Grotius's notion of natural law is, as he himself makes clear, founded upon two demands of nature, which are to be connected with what is now known as the Stoic doctrine of appropriation. However, Grotius's understanding of the notion of natural law as a set of rules is not Stoic, but rather goes back to an interpretation that can be ascribed to Antiochus of Ascalon. By moving away from the Stoics Grotius could not only easily accommodate the Aristotelian doctrine of (...) equity, otherwise rejected by the Stoics, but he could also formulate a minimalistic interpretation of human dispositions or 'rights', in contrast to the Stoics' maximalistic understanding of these dispositions as virtues. (shrink)

Aristote fait parfois état d’une pensée animale. Dans le De motu animalium, il paraît même considérer que les animaux ont recours à des syllogismes pratiques : il vaut cependant mieux résister à toute tentation de croire qu’il explique en ces termes le comportement animal, dans la mesure où il refuse d’attribuer aux animaux non humains le raisonnement, et tout d’abord l’universalité de la pensée ; or, qui dit absence de concepts ou de jugements universels dit incapacité d’établir les prémisses d’un (...) syllogisme. (shrink)

Hermeneutic philosophy. Part II: a nursing research example of the hermeneutic imperative to address forestructures/pre‐understandingsHermeneutic research requires that pre‐understandings are brought to consciousness in order to provide the phenomenon under investigation with the greatest opportunity to reveal itself. This hermeneutic imperative is dealt with in the present study. My research involved explicating the practice knowledge of nursing on residential adolescent mental health units, and as I had worked on such units I held pre‐understandings that would influence the research. I addressed (...) pre‐understandings in three ways: (i) by developing understandings of practice knowledge through a hermeneutic conceptualisation of it; (ii) by working out forestructures of the phenomenon under investigation. Using Heidegger’s writing on forestructures, 20 statements were generated, interpreted and reconceptualised as my forestructures of residential adolescent mental health nursing. I used this work to review participant interviews in an effort to prevent myself from only finding what I already assumed I would find in relation to practice knowledge; and (iii) by formulating pre‐understandings of the phenomenon of interest. Using Gadamer’s writing on reflection, seven stories were written and interpreted as my pre‐understandings of adolescent mental health nursing practice. I used this work to consider the presence of pre‐understandings during textual interpretation in an attempt to prevent premature interpretive closure. In these ways, I brought my forestructures/pre‐understandings to consciousness, reflected on them, questioned their origins, adequacy and legitimacy and thereby took account of their influence on myself and the research. (shrink)

Digraph games are cooperative TU-games associated to domination structures which can be modeled by directed graphs. Examples come from sports competitions or from simple majority win digraphs corresponding to preference profiles in social choice theory. The Shapley value, core, marginal vectors and selectope vectors of digraph games are characterized in terms of so-called simple score vectors. A general characterization of the class of (almost positive) TU-games where each selectope vector is a marginal vector is provided in terms of game semi-circuits. (...) Finally, applications to the ranking of teams in sports competitions and of alternatives in social choice theory are discussed. (shrink)

A symmetric network consists of a set of positions and a set of bilateral links between these positions. For every symmetric network we define a cooperative transferable utility game that measures the “power” of each coalition of positions in the network. Applying the Shapley value to this game yields a network power measure, the β-measure, which reflects the power of the individual positions in the network. Applying this power distribution method iteratively yields a limit distribution, which turns out to be (...) proportional to the well-known degree measure. We compare the β-measure and degree measure by providing characterizations, which differ only in the normalization that is used. (shrink)

The rise and development of the interdisciplinary academic discipline of cultural studies is part of a broader cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences that represents a fare- well to mono-causal and reductionist methodologies in favor of a more complex, holistic and dialectical analysis of social and cultural processes. In so-called ‘critical theory’ this has led to a shift from economic and political sources of social inequality and struggles towards the persistence and irreducible complexity of cultural difference or otherness, (...) evidenced by important studies of the role of nationalism, the aestheticization of everyday life or the growing influence of new media of communication and imagination. This cultural turn in humanities and social sciences is related to a growing influence of cultural and at the same time post-political forms of power in everyday life, exemplified by the dominance of a meritocratic culture of ‘positive thinking’ in different areas of society, or in other words: of a neoliberal culture and ideology. In cultural studies historical awareness of this growing influence of cultural power is combined with anthropological research into the specificities of contemporary everyday culture and with a strong sensibility for the tensions, inequalities and contradictions in that culture, due to an ever growing globalization of its conditions. This inter- or transdisciplinary perspective on the power of culture finally cannot do without a serious rethinking of the aesthetic quality or dimension of everyday culture – and at the same time a rethinking of the scope and substance of aesthetics itself. (shrink)

The founders of Krisis saw their journal as part of Rudi Dutschke’s ‘long march through the institutions’: a philosophical journal that would criticize and change the practices and institutions of academic philosophy from within. Philosophy should play a critical and emancipatory role in society and in intellectual and public debates, and the journal could help to enhance that role. Academic philosophy did change, but in a rather different direction: new public management took over and submitted academic research and education to (...) a new regime of entrepeneurial efficiency and disciplinary competition. To survive, Krisis metamorphosized several times and is now a broad bilingual online journal for intellectual debate and research with a loose relationship with academic philosophy. If it strengthens this identity, it can continue to play an intermediary role between academic research and public debate, in both directions. (shrink)