Religion was always perceived as the threshold between two worlds. It is a space where individuals are supposed to be connected to a different reality through the mediating power of a particlular ritual, at a specific time and in a certain space. A new space of appearance is the expected outcome along with this relocation from profane to sacred. Religious broadcasting could be conceptualized as a visual and acoustic “altar”. The ritual, space and time are the pillars of this audio-visual (...) “cathedral” the very space that could build the bridge between sacred and profane, and the means for this mediated, symbolic transfer. This paper tries to outline the power of media representation in the context of religious broadcasting that uses ritual and imagination to maintain and negotiate the distinction between sacred and profane and to generate alternative narratives. In this regard, the religious broadcasting, presuming the sacerdotal role to represent, mediate and interpret the relationship between sacred and profane is being conditioned by a ritualized medium. As a result, the religious messages could end up as a ritualized mystification that would jeopardize the production of meaning. (shrink)

Some of the post-socialist countries of Europe experienced after the fall of communism what some called a religious revival. Anthropologists and sociologists alike were sure that they discovered serious evidence against the case of secularization theory. What unfortunately most of them failed to observe was the particular shape and form of this religious growth and the structural changes of the religious mentalities occurred in the process of transition from a closed, ideologically monopolized society, to a pluralistic one. After more than (...) half of a century of atheistic ideologization of the public sphere, Romania remains one of the most religious countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. The thesis of this article is that this fact is due to the lack of modernization of the Romanian social system both before and during the post-socialist period. (shrink)

This is a study about the meaning of happiness (εὐδαιμονία) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN). It is argued that εὐδαιμονία in EN means actuality, and it has to be interpreted through the lenses of two metaphors used by Aristotle in EN 1.7 1098a21 and 10.6 1176a30: the “perimeter of good” and the “imprint of happiness.” To explain the meaning of happiness Aristotle first has to delineate the “perimeter of good” of human beings, and he does that with the help of (...) two criteria: the final end [τέλος] and the function of humanity [ἔργον ἀνθρώπου]. These two criteria are metaphysical concepts which describe the “good” as the final metaphysical aim of every person, and the best every person can be. This metaphysical teleological aim is the “actuality of the soul” according with excellence. This is the “perimeter” within which Aristotle enquires about εὐδαιμονία—the good of humans. (shrink)

The Dignity of the Children according to the New Testament teaching should be a landmark for modern era. New Testament raised the dignity of the unborn child, from a simple mass of cells to a child who has the right to be born and live. The child born has the value of a person that to enjoy family and society not only for economic potential but for the soul value as they bear the image of God. Children of different ages (...) have the right to be baptized, have access to the grace of the Sacraments and become saints. In fact the true dignity of man is his power to become a saint. And the child is the image of the saint, heir of the Heaven. (shrink)

The past three decades have witnessed the emergence, at the forefront of political thought, of several Kantian theories. Both the critical reaction to consequentialism inspired by Rawlsian constructivism and the universalism of more recent theories informed by Habermasian discourse ethics trace their main sources of inspiration back to Kant's writings. Yet much of what is Kantian in contemporary theory is formulated with more or less strict caveats concerning Kant's metaphysics. These range from radical claims that theories of justice must be (...) political, not metaphysical, to more cautious calls for replacing Kant's metaphysics with a more modest ontology, for instance, one informed by the relatively recent linguistic turn in philosophy. The volume will consist of thirteen state-of-the-art essays which explore the relationship between politics and metaphysics in Kant and Kantian political philosophy. All essays will be published for the first time in this volume and will be preceded by an Introduction from the editors. Given the current "legitimation crisis" of modern liberal democracies, the purpose of the collection as a whole is to revisit the question concerning the role of metaphysics in moral and political philosophy and to suggest new perspectives on the question of legitimation. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's work continues to be a main focus of attention in almost all areas of philosophy. The significance of Kant's work for the so-called continental philosophy cannot be exaggerated, although work in this area is relatively scant. The book includes eight chapters, a substantial introduction and a postscript, all newly written by an international cast of well-known authors. Each chapter focuses on particular aspects of a fundamental problem in Kant's and post-Kantian philosophy, the problem of the relation between the (...) world and transcendence. Chapters fall thematically into three parts: sensibility, nature and religion. Each part starts with a more interpretative chapter focusing on Kant's relevant work, and continues with comparative chapters which stage dialogues between Kant and post-Kantian philosophers, including Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-François Lyotard, Luce Irigaray and Jacques Derrida. A special feature of this volume is the engagement of each chapter with the work of the late British philosopher Gary Banham. The Postscript offers a subtle and erudite analysis of his intellectual trajectory, philosophy and mode of working. The volume is dedicated to his memory. (shrink)

During the last two decades, the intra-industry trade between western companies and former socialist enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe gradually shifted from the subcontracting of marginal operations such as final assembly to the outsourcing of products and intermediate inputs. To further enhance their competitiveness, firms in Central and Eastern Europe have yet to take one more step forward: integrate services with manufacturing. Developing such capabilities hinges, aside from intensive training and learning on the existence of functional interactive knowledgebased innovation (...) systems. Whereas Central and East European economies exhibit conspicuous weaknesses in this last respect, they still possess a countervailing advantage that is apt to lure foreign investors into the region: lower wage rates relative to western countries across all industries and skill levels. Offshoring therefore seems to be the most appropriate means to reconcile the two sides of the coin. (shrink)

In keeping with an already entrenched paradigm, international trade in tasks exerts upward pressure upon skilled workers’ wages in both home and host countries. Yet certain empirical evidence from intra-European trade shows that sometimes things occur in reverse, that is high skilled workers’ wages in home countries may decline as a result of offshoring, an outcome that looks like an inverse “maquiladora effect”. I try to show that such deviations do not fly in the face of mainstream theory but rather, (...) they reflect the different conditions under which offshoring is performed today as compared to the ones prevailing two decades ago. (shrink)

In this volume, Sorin Sabou explores the dependency of happiness on external goods in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Sabou defends the following thesis: the dependency of happiness on external goods, in EN, is interpreted in the light of its political self-sufficiency, and in the light of our political humanity; this dependency is of three kinds: (1) enhancing-instrumental, (2) constitutive, and (3) subsistent.

The article comments upon the report written by the French captain Aubert about the Romanian space during the XIXth century. It analyses the richness of documentation data contained by the report, through the lenses of the historical anthropological categories of “the other’s image”. The author concludes that the report was elaborated in a period when French interests for the Romanian space was rising.

In 1962, after insisting upon the Vienna moment and comparing the points in the second Leopold Diploma, the author believed that the union was fulfilled in Vienna where the imperial authorities played an essential role. The Jesuits, who were considered the artisans of the union up to that moment, were reduced to the role of negotiators and forgers of the documents of 1697, 1698 and 1700. Because of the resentments against the “traitors” of the nation, S. Dragomir could not or (...) did not want to understand the great change brought about in the history of Transylvanian Romanians by the political programme initiated by Inochentie. When we take into account the fact that Dragomir was one of the nationalists at the beginning of the 20th century in Transylvania, it is hard to understand his refusal to identify the birth of nationalism in Transylvania with the political action caused by the Greek- Catholic bishop. His historical writings were also influenced by the new political realities in Romania after 1944. The author hesitated to establish the causes of the religious movements led by Visarion Sarai and Sofronie of Cioara because he was influenced by the Marxist philosophy. In his interwar studies he thought the movements led by Visarion Sarai and Sofronie of Cioara had religious determinations and aimed at reestablishing the Orthodox faith. After 1955 the historian changed his conclusions, considering them social and national movements against the Hapsburgs. (shrink)

Suppose we are asked to draw up a list of things we take to exist. Certain items seem unproblematic choices, while others (such as God) are likely to spark controversy. The book sets the grand theological theme aside and asks a less dramatic question: should mathematical objects (numbers, sets, functions, etc.) be on this list? In philosophical jargon this is the ‘ontological’ question for mathematics; it asks whether we ought to include mathematicalia in our ontology. The goal of this work (...) is to answer this question in the affirmative, by drawing on considerations on the the applicability of mathematics to natural science. (shrink)

Arguing for mathematical realism on the basis of Field’s explanationist version of the Quine–Putnam Indispensability argument, Alan Baker has recently claimed to have found an instance of a genuine mathematical explanation of a physical phenomenon. While I agree that Baker presents a very interesting example in which mathematics plays an essential explanatory role, I show that this example, and the argument built upon it, begs the question against the mathematical nominalist.

This paper attempts to explain the theory of the body as seen by I.P. Culianu. Thus, starting from the idea that the soul is full of body – which is motivated by theories in the domain of fashion – through which the body is that which assumes the defining symbolic charge of the spirit which inhabits it. Reversing the order of things, if one looks in the latter portions of the vast work of I.P. Culianu the perspective may be found (...) according to which the body, even if not full of the soul, may at least be defined as a prolongation of the mind, that is, as the real engine of history and culture. (shrink)

This attempt to reveal several aspects of language power begins with the integralism promoted by Eugen Coseriu, who presents in his work the creative force of language. The author constructs a parallel between the structure of the communist society and the parithetic order of language. Thus, the force of an idiom is going to be exposed, and the preferred example is going to be the recent and painful history of the political life of Southeastern Europe, especially that of the former (...) Yugoslav republic. The author intends to demonstrate that linguistic idioms may eventually become extremely powerful, especially in certain historical circumstances. This conclusion in itself is judged to be interesting enough to move readers to be more attentive toward the power of language, from the perspective of finding the particular tradition that claims the existence, at the beginning of human language, of one unique (original) language. (shrink)

Throughout the history of philosophical thinking, ethics has almost never been associated with ontology because the moral approach is about the action while the ontological approach is about the being. The prospective approach confers to moral philosophy a genuine ontological direction, an ontology of the human, since it aims at identifying the problems of (human) existence, which no longer describes “what should be” but mostly “what can be”, thus anticipating the ways of human existence in a future world.The challenges raised (...) by disruptive innovations and the environmental issue require the critical eye of moral philosophy regarding the impact of technological progress is having in redefining the human condition of tomorrow’s society; all the more so as we are facing a regrettable backwardness of moral progress, which does not seem to keep pace with the spectacular changes in science and technology. The wisdom of ethical reflection refers to a feeling of concern for both present and future humanity as a whole,relating not only to immediate reality but, especially, anticipating what might happen. (shrink)

A critical approach on tolerance can be done as an endeavor to asset its rational arguments brought in its support or/and as a justification of its moral value within the process of human being completion. The commitment to such critical task is more necessary as it is unyieldingness summon in contemporary debates in political religious and, especially moral contexts, it has been equally valorized and contested. The most remarkable analyses of this rather summary rubric for many and often contradictory connotations, (...) then concept, underline the idea that a limit-matter is at stake: can be tolerated the intolerable? Because these boundaries are hard to be distinguished the critical position intellectually reasonable seems to be that of examining if is not more socially profitable and morally justifiable to be tolerant rather than intolerant.Developing possible arguments for and against the universal value of tolerance, critical discourse imposes a very meaningful statement: to uphold our humanity, even the demand for our right to intolerance must be done within the framework and with the means of tolerance. (shrink)

According to standard (quantum) statistical mechanics, the phenomenon of a phase transition, as described in classical thermodynamics, cannot be derived unless one assumes that the system under study is infinite. This is naturally puzzling since real systems are composed of a finite number of particles; consequently, a well‐known reaction to this problem was to urge that the thermodynamic definition of phase transitions (in terms of singularities) should not be “taken seriously.” This article takes singularities seriously and analyzes their role by (...) using the well‐known distinction between data and phenomena , in an attempt to better understand the origin of the puzzle. *Received April 2009; revised July 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, United Kingdom; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The question as to whether there are mathematical explanations of physical phenomena has recently received a great deal of attention in the literature. The answer is potentially relevant for the ontology of mathematics; if affirmative, it would support a new version of the indispensability argument for mathematical realism. In this article, I first review critically a few examples of such explanations and advance a general analysis of the desiderata to be satisfied by them. Second, in an attempt to strengthen the (...) realist position, I propose a new type of example, drawing on probabilistic considerations. 1 Introduction2 Mathematical Explanations2.1 ‘Simplicity’3 An Average Story: The Banana Game3.1 Some clarifications3.2 Hopes and troubles for the nominalist3.3 New hopes?3.4 New troubles4 Conclusion. (shrink)

Can there be mathematical explanations of physical phenomena? In this paper, I suggest an affirmative answer to this question. I outline a strategy to reconstruct several typical examples of such explanations, and I show that they fit a common model. The model reveals that the role of mathematics is explicatory. Isolating this role may help to re-focus the current debate on the more specific question as to whether this explicatory role is, as proposed here, also an explanatory one.

The articulation of an overarching account of scientific explanation has long been a central preoccupation for the philosophers of science. Although a while ago the literature was dominated by two approaches—a causal account and a unificationist account—today the consensus seems to be that the causal account has won. In this paper, I challenge this consensus and attempt to revive unificationism. More specifically, I aim to accomplish three goals. First, I add new criticisms to the standard anti-unificationist arguments, in order to (...) motivate the need for a revision of the doctrine. Second, and most importantly, I sketch such a revised version. Then I argue that, contrary to widespread belief, the causal account and this revised unificationist account of explanation are compatible. Moreover, I also maintain that the unificationist account has priority, since a most satisfactory theory of explanation can be obtained by incorporating the causal account, as a sub-component of the unificationist account. The driving force behind this reevaluation of the received view in the philosophy of explanation is a reconsideration of the role of scientific understanding. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Can there be mathematical explanations of physical phenomena? In this paper, I suggest an affirmative answer to this question. I outline a strategy to reconstruct several typical examples of such explanations, and I show that they fit a common model. The model reveals that the role of mathematics is explicatory. Isolating this role may help to re-focus the current debate on the more specific question as to whether this explicatory role is, as proposed here, also an explanatory one.

The paper discusses the emergence of Frege's puzzle and the introduction of the celebrated distinction between sense and reference in the context of Frege's logicist project. The main aim of the paper is to show that not logicism per se is mainly responsible for this introduction, but Frege's constant struggle against formalism. Thus, the paper enlarges the historical context, and provides a reconstruction of Frege's philosophical development from this broader perspective.

The introduction summarizes the main arguments formulated in the six papers of this special issue on Constitutivism and Kantian Constructivism in Ethical Theory. We highlight the unifying theme addressed in the essays, i.e., the question of whether constitutivism is able to fulfill the promise of providing an account of normativity starting from relatively slender assumptions, including the avoidance of realist presuppositions.

In this paper I examine the fundamental views on the nature of logical and mathematical truth of both Frege and Carnap. I argue that their positions are much closer than is standardly assumed. I attempt to establish this point on two fronts. First, I argue that Frege is not attempting to defend metaphysical theses. Second, I argue that Carnap, where he does differ from Frege, can be seen to do so because of mathematical results proven in the early twentieth century. (...) The differences in their views are, then, not primarily philosophical differences. Also, it might be thought that Frege was interested in analyzing our ordinary mathematical notions, while Carnap was interested in the construction of arbitrary systems. I argue that this is not the case: our ordinary notions play, in a sense, an even more important role in Carnap’s philosophy of mathematics than they do in Frege’s. Finally, I address Tyler Burge’s interpretation of Frege which is in opposition to any Carnapian reading of Frege. (shrink)

My main aim is to sketch a certain reading (‘genealogical’) of later Wittgenstein’s views on logical necessity. Along the way, I engage with the inferentialism currently debated in the literature on the epistemology of deductive logic.

Este trabajo se propone explorar los vínculos posibles entre poesía y pensamiento no antrópico tomando como base las filosofías de Jacques Derrida y Maurice Blanchot. Su análisis partirá de El animal que luego estoy si(gui)endo (que dice que el pensamiento animal, si existe, depende de la poesía) y proseguirá con una serie de textos blanchotianos, en particular con «La literatura y el derecho a la muerte». De allí nos será de particular utilidad la distinción entre lenguaje corriente y lenguaje literario, (...) en especial en aquello que atañe a los poetas. Esto implicará rever la nominación qua operación conceptualizante, y conducirá a reflexionar sobre el estatuto de la muerte que acontece en el lenguaje (de lo existente que captura, pero también del autor) y de la materialidad de las palabras. Según espera mostrar, se puede ver en estos análisis sobre el lenguaje una contaminación entre lo lógico y lo poético, y ello permite reconfigurar la relación entre lo humano y el resto de los vivientes. Por último, el trabajo se pregunta qué porvenir pueden tener el pensamiento y la filosofía luego de semejantes elaboraciones, y propone una vía posible nuevamente desde Blanchot y Derrida. (shrink)