In Germany, transfers of assets between generations are subject to inheritance and gift tax.1 However, there are different views on whether or not the present level of taxation is high enough. Our study looks at the potential for applying increases. We show that the constitutional framework does indeed allow for higher taxation in the case of intergenerational property transfers. We identify the essential points in current German inheritance and gift tax law, which make it possible to transfer large assets with (...) no or low inheritance tax burden. For these points as well as the determination of tax rates, we propose reform approaches and present options for the use of possible additional income. (shrink)

This is a collection of sixteen essays by a diverse group of international scholars that offers a wide-ranging and contemporary perspective on the major aspects of Christian Wolff’s ethics. The volume focuses on Wolff’s German Ethics, arguably his most important and influential text on moral philosophy, but many of the chapters also consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff’s moral theory in his later Latin writings. The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic structure of the (...) text itself and the relation between Wolff’s ethics and the preceding natural law tradition. Many chapters pay special attention to the core concepts of Wolff’s moral philosophy, such as obligation, perfection, the highest good, and happiness. Other notable topics include Wolff’s conception of moral judgment and moral education, as well as the role of psychology and anthropology in his ethical thought. The volume also contains discussion of the influence of Wolff’s ethics on subsequent figures such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, and Kant. As a whole, the volume seeks to establish the importance of Wolff’s German Ethics within the history of ethics as well as inspire others to engage with his thought. (shrink)

This article investigates the anthropology of Spinoza as a strategy for happiness, political, as well as individual. Inspired by the readings, comments, and perspectives of Matheron, Deleuze, and Balibar, I will analyze Spinoza’s theory of the affects as the basis for this strategic anthropology. These authors all share an ontological and political vision organized around the concepts of multitude and the transindividual which result directly from Spinoza’s analysis of the human affects in books III and IV of the Ethics, and (...) his theory of political dynamics developed in the Political treatise. They consider Spinoza a contemporary and share with him the idea of a relational ontology and an inextricable and mutual interdependence of the individual and the community which is captured in the concept of the transindividual. With Matheron/Spinoza I will focus on the question of anthropology and the structure of thought, with Deleuze/Spinoza on the kinds of knowledge in relation to the human mind and body, and with Balibar/Spinoza on the transindividual, productive, active, and thus strategic nature of our thinking. These three analyses of human thought and affects all proceed from the hypothesis of conatus/desire as human essence and aim not just at theoretical knowledge but rather at the effective improvement of our well-being and lives, that is, at happiness. (shrink)

Literature on the subject of the menopause, primarily from the past three decades, is selectively reviewed in the form of an annotated bibliography. In order to highlight particular methodological problems, the review is presented in three sections, each preceded by a brief discussion, as follows: the general report of clinical observation or experience, the survey, and the clinical trial. Several recommendations are also made for further research in this field.

Die Anforderungen an das ethisch-professionelle Handeln Pflegender und somit auch die Forderungen an die professionelle Ethikkompetenz Pflegender im praktischen Berufsfeld wandeln sich sowohl qualitativ als auch quantitativ. Dies wird auch in den veränderten normativen Rahmungen der Pflegebildung deutlich. Der Lernort Praxis als ein zentraler Ort pflegebezogener Bildungsprozesse rückt somit nochmals stärker in den Fokus der Ethikkompetenzentwicklung professionell Pflegender. Der Beitrag konturiert zentrale Anforderungen und veränderte Bezüglichkeiten für die Ethikbildung im beruflichen Handlungsfeld professioneller Pflege und formuliert davon ausgehend zentrale Prämissen an (...) organisationsethische Rahmenbedingungen mit dem Ziel, eine ethisch fundierte professionelle pflegerische Handlungspraxis zu unterstützen. (shrink)

Die Anforderungen an das ethisch-professionelle Handeln Pflegender und somit auch die Forderungen an die professionelle Ethikkompetenz Pflegender im praktischen Berufsfeld wandeln sich sowohl qualitativ als auch quantitativ. Dies wird auch in den veränderten normativen Rahmungen der Pflegebildung deutlich. Der Lernort Praxis als ein zentraler Ort pflegebezogener (Aus‑)Bildungsprozesse rückt somit nochmals stärker in den Fokus der Ethikkompetenzentwicklung professionell Pflegender. Der Beitrag konturiert zentrale Anforderungen und veränderte Bezüglichkeiten für die Ethikbildung im beruflichen Handlungsfeld professioneller Pflege und formuliert davon ausgehend zentrale Prämissen an (...) organisationsethische Rahmenbedingungen mit dem Ziel, eine ethisch fundierte professionelle pflegerische Handlungspraxis zu unterstützen. (shrink)

What is astro-culture? In The Babylonian Planet it is unfolded as an aesthetic, an idea, a field of study, a position, and a practice. It helps to engineer the shift from a world view that is segregated to one that is integrated - from global to planetary; from distance to intimacy and where closeness and cosmic distance live side-by-side. In this tour de force, Sonja Neef takes her cue from Edouard Glissant's vision of multilingualism and reignites the myth of (...) the Tower of Babel to anticipate new forms of cultural encounter. For her, Babel is an organic construction site at which she fuses theoretical analysis and case studies of artists, writers and thinkers like William Kentridge, Orhan Pamuk and Immanuel Kant. Her skilful interrogations then allow her to paint a portrait of art and culture that abolishes the horizon as a barrier to vision and reclaims it as a place of contact and relation. By combining the Babylonian concept of the encounter and the planetary concept of the whole-earth, Neef creates a space - an astro-culture - in which she can examine topics as varied as language, translation, media, modernity, migration and the moon. In doing so, she instigates a renewed cultural understanding receptive to the kinder forms of cultural encounter and globalisation she hopes will come. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx - a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s - Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today. To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed for (...) their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form a new construction: a materialist legal theory that is up to date and can avoid the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law. (shrink)

_The Dutch Legacy_ investigates the political philosophy and philosophy of religion of Franciscus van den Enden, Lodewijk Meyer, the brothers De la Court, and Adriaan Koerbagh in order to assess their contributions to the development of radical movements in the Enlightenment.

Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Christian Wolff’s conception of motivating and normative reasons. My aim is to show that in the discussion of error cases, Wolff pursues a strategy that is strikingly similar to the strategy of contemporary defenders of nicht-psychologist accounts of motivating reasons. According to many nicht-psychologist views, motivating reasons are facts. My aim is to show that Wolff’s motivation in pursuing this strategy is very different. The point is that due to his commitment to the Principle of (...) Sufficient Reason, Wolff has to show that error cases are compatible with the PSR. The issue is worth discussing because it is not yet sufficiently explored what motivating reasons are, according to Wolff, and how they relate, in substance, to normative reasons. Methodologically, my approach can be characterized as one of “mutual illumination”: I think it is possible to highlight some crucial ambiguities of Wolff’s conception against the backdrop of the contemporary conception of motivating reasons, but also to question the importance and role of the ontological question of what motivating reasons are in contemporary discussions against the backdrop of Wolff’s position. (shrink)

Prior research has identified age 9–11 as a critical period for the development of the control-of-variables strategy (CVS). We examine the stability of interindividual differences in children's CVS skills with regard to their precursor skills during this critical developmental period. To this end, we relate two precursor skills of CVS at age 9 to four skills constituting fully developed CVS more than 2 years later, controlling for children's more general cognitive development. Note thatN= 170 second- to fourth-graders worked on multiple (...) choice-assessments of their understanding of indeterminacy of evidence and of confounding. We find relations between these two precursor skills and children's CVS skills 2 years later at age 11 inplanning, identifying, andinterpretingcontrolled experiments, and in recognizing the inconclusiveness of confounded comparisons (understanding). In accordance with the perspective that both indeterminacy and confounding constitute critical, related yet distinct elements of CVS, both precursor skills contribute to the prediction of later CVS. Together, the two precursor skills can explain 39% of students' later CVS mastery. Overall, the understanding of indeterminacy is a stronger predictor of fully developed CVS than that of confounding. The understanding of confounding, however, is a better predictor of the more difficult CVS sub-skills of understanding the inconclusiveness of confounded comparisons, and of planning a correctly controlled experiment. Importantly, both precursor skills maintain interactive predictive strength when controlling for children's general cognitive abilities and reading comprehension, showing that the developmental dynamics of CVS and its precursor skills cannot be fully ascribed to general cognitive development. We discuss implications of these findings for theories about the development of CVS and broader scientific reasoning. (shrink)

People with post-stroke motor aphasia know what they would like to say but cannot express it through motor pathways due to disruption of cortical circuits. We present a theoretical background for our hypothesized connection between attention and aphasia rehabilitation and suggest why in this context, Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) use might be beneficial for patients diagnosed with aphasia. Not only could BCI technology provide a communication tool, it might support neuronal plasticity by activating language circuits and thereby boost aphasia recovery. However, (...) stroke may lead to heterogeneous symptoms that might hinder BCI use which is why the feasibility of this approach needed to be investigated first. In this pilot study, we included five participants diagnosed with post-stroke aphasia. Four participants were initially unable to use the visual P300 speller paradigm. By adjusting the paradigm to their needs, all participants could successfully learn to use the speller for communication with accuracies up to 100%. We describe necessary adjustments to the paradigm and present future steps to further investigate the here presented approach. (shrink)

The thesis addresses the question of human consciousness in its oscillation between conditioning and transcendence: the impact of cultural worldviews on the individual's lifeworld and their gradual transcendence as a form of spiritual practice. At the centre of attention is a group of individuals and their unfolding life-stories as they move through a journey of transformation, seeking to explore and understand the complexity of their own consciousness. The emphasis is on the embodiment of belief systems and the individuals' inherent existential (...) power to transcend cultural precepts. Methodologically, the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. It thus employs the first-person perspective and includes subjective personal experience as primary data. (shrink)

(1994). Serbia. World Futures: Vol. 39, The Evolution of European Identity: Surveys of the Growing Edge A Report by the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 143-148.

My general aim in commenting on Băltuță’s paper is to elucidate the metaphor of a dialogue she uses to characterize the general, methodological framework of her undertaking. For this purpose, I turn to a certain strand of the contemporary discussion of the role of the historian of philosophy. According to Băltuță, the determination of the limits of such a dialogue is a matter of degree, not of principle. I agree with her. My concern is that the determination of the limits (...) of the dialogue is thwarted if the central, contemporary notion that is taken to be applicable to the historical account in question is used equivocally. In my view, there is a serious concern that Băltuță’s account equivocates on the term “intentional,” making it difficult to determine the limits of the dialogue between contemporary and medieval views on the intentionality of pain. My specific aim in this comment is to show that although Băltuță equivocates on the term “intentional,” her analysis of Kilwardby’s account can be adjusted such that her argument succeeds in showing that pain is in fact an intentional state for Kilwardby. (shrink)

We propose a new topological semantics for evidence, evidence-based justifications, belief, and knowledge. Resting on the assumption that an agent’s rational belief is based on the available evidence, we try to unveil the concrete relationship between an agent’s evidence, belief, and knowledge via a rich formal framework afforded by topologically interpreted modal logics. We prove soundness, completeness, decidability, and the finite model property for the associated logics, and apply this setting to analyze key epistemological issues such as “no false lemma” (...) Gettier examples, misleading defeaters, undefeated justification versus undefeated belief, as well as the defeasibility theories of knowledge. (shrink)

In Ockham's Assumption of Mental Speech: Thinking in a World of Particulars, Sonja Schierbaum offers a detailed philosophical reconstruction of William Ockham's (1287-1349) conception of mental speech. Ockham's conception provides a rich account of cognition and semantics that binds together various philosophical issues and forms a point of departure for many later and even contemporary debates. The book analyses the role of mental speech for the semantics and the use of linguistic expressions as well as its function within Ockham's (...) cognitive theory and epistemology. Carefully balancing Ockham's position against contemporary appropriations in the light of Fodor's LOTH, it allows us to understand better Ockham's view on human thought and its relation to language. (shrink)

Angesichts des Ausbruchs der Corona-Pandemie erfährt Foucaults Konzept der Biopolitik eine verstärkte Aufmerksamkeit innerhalb der politisch- philosophischen Debatten. So lässt sich in Rückgriff auf Foucaults Analyse einer sich seit dem 17. Jh. durchsetzenden „Lebensmacht“ nicht nur zeigen, inwiefern Maßnahmen zum Schutz der Bevölkerung vor einem neuartigen Virus Leben erhalten. Foucaults Beschreibung des Rassismus liefert auch einen ersten Analyseansatz, um die differenzielle Bestimmung von schützenswertem Leben zu problematisieren. Gilt es darüber hinausgehend zu verstehen, durch und innerhalb welcher je spezifischen Rahmendispositive biopolitische (...) Logiken operieren und wie es möglich wird, rassistischen Kalkülen zu widerstehen, stellen Judith Butlers und Donna Haraways Reflexionen über Körperlichkeit, Immunität und Vulnerabilität eine entscheidende Erweiterung dar. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Implikationen biopolitische Strategien angesichts einer globalen Gesundheitskrise haben, und versucht davon ausgehend, eine andere Form der Politik zu denken, die auf eine wechselseitige Verbundenheit bzw. Interdependenz und die daraus resultierende Vulnerabilität als geteilte Bedingung allen Lebens reflektiert. Eine solche Politik bezieht sich nicht auf „das Leben selbst“, sondern auf die ökologischen und sozialen Beziehungen, die ein lebbares Leben erst ermöglichen. (shrink)

International treaties, conventions and declarations have been developed in an attempt to establish a world in which people s basic rights and needs are provided for. An increasing number of states have ratified and incorporated them into their national legislations. But are such norms and values truly universal? And with states no longer being the only actors that shape global developments, what can be said about the role of social contracts between state and society for shaping the agenda of international (...) cooperation? And how do these social contracts develop in heterogeneous societies? If people themselves are the main drivers behind development, what does this imply for foreign aid?These and other questions are addressed in "Global Values in a Changing World," the 2010-2011 lecture series organized by the Netherlands Chapter of the Society for International Development. This volume combines views and recommendations by international experts, academics, and activists, and analyzes the connection between internationally agreed norms, standards, goals, and common goods, and the way they can be realized in a world that is both globalized and localized.". (shrink)

Research within the operational approach to the logical foundations of physics has recently pointed out a new perspective in which quantum logic can be viewed as an intuitionistic logic with an additional operator to capture its essential, i.e., non-distributive, properties. In this paper we will offer an introduction to this approach. We will focus further on why quantum logic has an inherent dynamic nature which is captured in the meaning of "orthomodularity" and on how it motivates physically the introduction of (...) dynamic implication operators, each for which a deduction theorem holds with respect to a dynamic conjunction. As such we can offer a positive answer to the many who pondered about whether quantum logic should really be called a logic. Doubts to answer the question positively were in first instance due to the former lack of an implication connective which satisfies the deduction theorem within quantum logic. (shrink)

The article discusses the relation between the concepts of unfair trade, exploitation, and below-subsistence wages with regard to individual economic transactions. Starting from the common notion that exploitation involves some kind of unfair advantage taking, it asks how “unfair” is to be understood, and what it is that is taken advantage of in exploitative exchanges. On this basis it then explores a line of argument for grounding the claim that below-subsistence wages are exploitative, focusing on the condition of morally transformative (...) voluntary consent to transactions. By analyzing the structure of coercion with regard to threats, offers, and circumstances it comes to the conclusion that consent to an offer is morally non-transformative with regard to legitimizing the outcome of a transaction if the person giving the “consent” has only unacceptable options in absolute terms to choose from, since this reduces “consent” to a mere act of rationality devoid of any normative content. Accordingly, it argues that insofar as below-subsistence wages are unacceptable options in absolute terms, they are to be considered exploitative and an instance of unfair trade. (shrink)

In recent years, discourses around “personalized,” “stratified,” and “precision” medicine have proliferated. These concepts broadly refer to the translational potential carried by new data-intensive biomedical research modes. Each describes expectations about the future of medicine and healthcare that data-intensive innovation promises to bring forth. The definitions and uses of the concepts are, however, plural, contested and characterized by diverse ideas about the kinds of futures that are desired and desirable. In this paper, we unpack key disputes around the “personalized,” “stratified,” (...) and “precision” terms, and map the epistemic, political and economic contexts that structure them as well as the different roles attributed to patients and citizens in competing future imaginaries. We show the ethical and value baggage embedded within the promises that are manufactured through terminological choices and argue that the context and future-oriented nature of these choices helps to understanding how data-intensive biomedical innovations are made socially meaningful. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that, unlike proponents of Humean accounts of intentional action, Ockham can also answer the fundamental question of why we desire anything at all. For Ockham, desire cannot be the starting point of the explanation, since desire presupposes yet another kind of appetitive act that is objectual, or non-propositional, in its nature. Ockham calls this love (amor). It should become clear that Ockham's approach, even in his day, is not common. It is, however, (...) worthy of detailed examination because it furthers a deeper and more complete understanding of intentional action by shedding light on this more fundamental question. In his terminology, love is the most basic kind of unconditional willing, not least because it is purely objectual: we appreciate persons as ends, not as means. The explanation of intentional action has to start somewhere. And, for Ockham, it starts with love for persons. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the relevance of judgment for practical considerations by discussing Christian August Crusius’s conception of rational desire. According to my interpretation of Crusius’s distinction between rational and non-rational desire, we are responsible at least for our rational desires insofar as we can control them. And we can control our rational desires by judging whether what we want complies with our human nature. It should become clear that Crusius’s conception of rational desire is normative in that we (...) necessarily desire things that are compatible with our nature, such as our own perfection. Therefore, a desire is rational if the desired object is apt to satisfy the desires compatible with our nature. From a contemporary perspective, such a normative conception of rational desire might not appear very attractive; it is apt, however, to stimulate a debate on the normative criteria and the role of judgment for rational desire, which is the ultimate aim of this paper. (shrink)

In his recent book "Explaining Behavior," Fred Dretske has outlined a naturalized theory of intentionality. Several philosophers, including Dretske himself, view his theory as lending credence to the claim that mental state content should be construed widely. In this paper I argue that careful analysis of his theory reveals that this view is mistaken. In Dretske's theory, the notion of the function of a state plays a central role in the determination of content. It will be my contention that this (...) notion of function cannot be used in Dretske's theory to distinguish between the wide construal of the content of an intentional state and the narrow or individualistic construal. This inability of his notion of function to discriminate between wide content and individualistic content undermines any claim that Dretske's theory endorses wide content. Instead, we are lead to the conclusion that Dretske's theory entails pervasive content indeterminacy. (shrink)

Following up on earlier investigations, the present research aims at validating the construct impostor phenomenon by taking other personality correlates into account and to examine whether the impostor phenomenon is a construct in its own right. In addition, gender effects as well as associations with dispositional working styles and strain are examined. In an online study we surveyed a sample of N = 242 individuals occupying leadership positions in different sectors. Confirmatory factor analyses provide empirical evidence for the discriminant validity (...) of the impostor phenomenon. In accord with earlier studies we show that the impostor phenomenon is accompanied by higher levels of anxiety, dysphoric moods, emotional instability, a generally negative self-evaluation, and perfectionism. The study does not reveal any gender differences concerning the impostor phenomenon. With respect to working styles, persons with an impostor self-concept tend to show perfectionist as well as procrastinating behaviors. Moreover, they report being more stressed and strained by their work. In sum, the findings show that the impostor phenomenon constitutes a dysfunctional personality style. Practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

We analyze G.M. Hardegree's interpretation of the Sasaki hook as a Stalnaker conditional and explain how he makes use of the basic conceptual machinery of OQL, i.e. the operational quantum logic which originated with the Geneva Approach to the foundations of physics. In particular we focus on measurements which are ideal and of the first kind, since these encode the content of the so-called Sasaki projections within the Geneva Approach. The Sasaki projections play a fundamental role when analyzing the condition (...) under which the properties expressed by Sasaki hooks can be considered as actual. We finish with a note on how the Sasaki hook can be conceived as ``assigning causes for properties to be actual", which links the interpretation of G.M. Hardegree to what has been called ``dynamic OQL". (shrink)

Just as burnout is manifested through changes in behavioural and communication patterns, it is important to examine whether certain aspects of communication can affect student burnout development. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between communication and academic burnout. To achieve this, the study proposes an integrated model examining the effects of three communication dimensions – support from academic staff, support from colleagues, and participation in decision-making – on four different dimensions of academic burnout, as well as students’ overall (...) burnout. The model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis. High coefficients of determination regarding particular burnout dimensions validate the strength of the proposed model. The results show that support from academic staff and support from fellow students significantly and negatively influence academic burnout, and might be instrumental in its reduction. Unexpectedly, participation in decision-making is shown to be positively related to academic burnout. (shrink)

Counters the long-standing, solemn interpretation of Plato’s dialogues with one centered on the philosophical and pedagogical significance of Socrates as a comic figure. Plato was described as a boor and it was said that he never laughed out loud. Yet his dialogues abound with puns, jokes, and humor. Sonja Madeleine Tanner argues that in Plato’s dialogues Socrates plays a comical hero who draws heavily from the tradition of comedy in ancient Greece, but also reforms laughter to be applicable to (...) all persons and truly shaming to none. Socrates introduces a form of self-reflective laughter that encourages, rather than stifles, philosophical inquiry. Laughter in the dialogues—both explicit and implied—suggests a view of human nature as incongruous with ourselves, simultaneously falling short of, and superseding, our own capacities. What emerges is a picture of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Socrates’ own, laughable depiction, one inspired by Dionysus, but one that remains ultimately intractable. The book analyzes specific instances of laughter and the comical from the Apology, Laches, Charmides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, and the Symposium to support this, and to further elucidate the philosophical consequences of recognizing Plato’s laughter. Sonja Madeleine Tanner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and the author of In Praise of Plato’s Poetic Imagination. (shrink)

Original tales inspired by Native American and Norwegian folklore that highlight the wisdom of the divine natural world.

Violence, domination, inégalité, tyrannie et insurrections : la réflexion de Spinoza sur le droit et la politique ne se limite pas au pacte social, ni à la liberté de philosopher. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dresser la liste des droits respectifs du souverain et des sujets, dans le sillage des théories du droit naturel. Déjà Althusser avait rapproché Spinoza de Marx et Alexandre Matheron avait montré le rôle essentiel des passions dans la Cité et ses transformations. Toute une génération (...) de chercheurs s'est interrogée ensuite sur les notions par lesquelles se pense ce devenir : foule, peuple, nation, mais aussi multitude. C'est ce dernier terme surtout qui concentre le mieux une pensée de l'initiative historique des citoyens et de leur puissance collective. Il restait à en tirer les conséquences sur les rapports entre individu et multitude, sur les relations de la pensée spinoziste avec Machiavel, Grotius et Hobbes, sur l'attitude de Spinoza envers révolution et conservation, résistance, assimilation et intégration, citoyenneté, désobéissance et révolte. Autant de thèmes qui sont développés ici, à travers la lecture renouvelée de L'Ethique, du Traité théologico-politique, et du Traité politique. Le volume s'achève par un entretien avec Toni Negri, qui fut le premier, dans son livre L'Anomalie sauvage, à mettre en lumière l'importance et le rôle de ce concept. Il y fait le bilan de son propre itinéraire et des discussions qu'il a suscitées."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)