The history of democracy is increasingly understood as not only the recovery of its practices and conceptualisations but also of its signifiers. In order to grasp the transition of the word “democracy” from a reviled to a revered term in Britain, this article focuses on socialist uses of the democratic idiom during the 1880s. Across a study of socialist publications, speeches and newspapers, three different uses of “democracy” emerge. First, the word could mean a political ideal to be materialised, through (...) universal suffrage but more widely by means of popular and direct control of Parliament. Second, the term was seen as a dangerous illusion that cast a veil over capitalist oppression. Third, “democracy” could denote a political reality already present in Britain, which needed to be reflected in the economic sphere. Although sometimes diverging, these uses can be linked to three important socialist organisations: the Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.), the Socialist League (S.L.) and the Fabian Society (F.S.). Recovering these distinctive uses illuminates the relationship between “democracy” and “socialism” and offers a key with which to understand our current political landscape. (shrink)

David Miller est un intellectuel de gauche britannique bien connu pour ses nombreuses et importantes publications en philosophie politique et son dernier ouvrage, Principles of Social Justice, était attendu avec impatienceDans cet ouvrage, Miller propose des principes généraux de justice sociale devant guider l’organisation des principales institutions de la société ainsi qu’une justification élaborée de ces principes. C’est ce qu’on peut appeler, à l’instar de Miller, une théorie de la justice sociale. La théorie est ambitieuse, traite des principaux aspects de (...) l’organisation de la société et contient des remarques intéressantes sur les difficultés du maintien des services sociaux et des paiements de transfert dans le contexte de la mondialisation et du multiculturalisme. L’auteur prétend que ce qui caractérise sa théorie est un plus grand souci du contexte d’application de la justice ainsi qu’une considération plus systématique des opinions des gens ordinaires. (shrink)

David Miller est un intellectuel de gauche britannique bien connu pour ses nombreuses et importantes publications en philosophie politique et son dernier ouvrage,Principles of Social Justice, était attendu avec impatience. Dans cet ouvrage, Miller propose des principes généraux de justice sociale devant guider l'organisation des principales institutions de la société ainsi qu'une justification élaborée de ces principes. C'est ce qu'on peut appeler, à l'instar de Miller, une théorie de la justice sociale. La théorie est ambitieuse, traite des principaux aspects de (...) l'organization de la société (la répartition des richesses, l'emploi, l'éducation, la santé) et contient des remarques intéressantes sur les difficultés du maintien des services sociaux et des paiements de transfert dans le contexte de la mondialisation et du multiculturalisme. L'auteur prétend que ce qui caractérise sa théorie est un plus grand souci du contexte d'application de la justice ainsi qu'une considération plus systématique des opinions des gens ordinaires (préface, p. x). (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ Dans de récents travaux, Charles Taylor distingue deux types de libéralisme, qu'il associe respectivement au Canada et au Québec. Le premier se caractérise par l'adhésion à la règle de neutralité de I'État, tandis que le second impose moins de limites à l'intervention de l'État. Parce qu'il serait moins « homogénéisant », Taylor se prononce en faveur du second type. Plusieurs éléments de l'analyse de Taylor me semblent faux ou erronés. Premièrement, la distinction entre les deux types de libéralisme n'est (...) pas toujours claire. Deuxièmement, le type de libéralisme que Taylor favorise n'est pas du tout acceptable. Troisièmement, je ne crois pas que le Canada et le Québec adhèrent à des types différents de libéralisme. ABSTRACT In his recent works, Charles Taylor distinguishes between two forms of liberalism, which are respectively associated with Canada and Québec. The first one is characterized by its support for the neutrality of the State, while the second imposes almost no restriction to the intervention of the State. Because it is less "homogenizing", Taylor favors the second form. Many parts of Taylor's analysis seems to me to be false or erroneous. First, the distinction between the two liberalisms is not at all clear. Second, the liberalism that Taylor favors is not acceptable. Third, it is not true that Québec and Canada adhere to different forms ofliberalism. (shrink)

Il faut d’emblée signaler que l’ouvrage dont il s’agit est la traduction d’un livre publié pour la première fois en italien en 1989 sous le titre Etica e politica. Étant donné qu’il s’est passé beaucoup de choses depuis cette date en philosophie politique et en politique, il est difficile d’évaluer l’intérêt de l’ouvrage et de lui rendre entièrement justice. Idéalement il faudrait le comparer aux ouvrages de son époque et tenir compte du contexte politique et intellectuel italien, ce qui n’est (...) pas toujours facile. Cela dit, mon opinion est que le sujet traité a évolué trop rapidement et que l’ouvrage ne présente plus beaucoup d’intérêt pour le spécialiste. Compte tenu du niveau d’abstraction et des nombreuses références aux auteurs contemporains, le non-spécialiste n’en retirera pas beaucoup non plus. Après avoir résumé schématiquement les idées de Veca, je les commenterai point par point en les mettant en relation avec les développements récents en philosophie politique. (shrink)

L’ouvrage de M. Pestieau, intéressant et substantiel, s’articule autour de trois thèmes on ne peut plus actuels: la fragmentation des nations, la mondialisation de l’économie et l’impact de ces deux phénomènes sur la souveraineté de l’État et la santé des institutions démocratiques. Concernant le premier thème, l’auteur aborde entre autres les questions du nationalisme, du multiculturalisme et du droit de sécession. Au sujet du second, l’auteur traite des effets de la mondialisation sur l’emploi et la répartition des richesses, de l’aide (...) au développement, de la pertinence des interventions économiques de l’État, de la constitution de grands blocs économiques, etc. Enfin, considérant les défis soulevés par les deux thèmes précédents, l’auteur fait le point sur la démocratisation des institutions et associations internationales, le fédéralisme, le patriotisme constitutionnel et le nationalisme culturel. Sur toutes ces questions, le propos se veut général et universel, mais les cas du Canada et du Québec servent souvent d’exemples. Accompagne cette ambitieuse table des matières, une bibliographie considérable que l’auteur semble tout à fait maîtriser. (shrink)

En tant qu’introduction à son sujet, l’ouvrage est cependant un modèle de clarté et de concision. L’auteur retrace d’abord l’histoire des idées libérales et démocratiques: il présente la querelle des anciens et des modernes au sujet de la liberté, évalue l’impact de la révolution des droits de l’homme et résume les contributions de Mill et de Tocqueville au débat. Dans les derniers chapitres du livre, Bobbio discute les rapports que le libéralisme et la démocratie ont établis avec l’utilitarisme, l’individualisme, l’organicisme (...) et le socialisme. Considéré comme un travail d’introduction, le seul point faible du livre est de ne pas être à jour. (shrink)

The eleventh-century philosopher and physician Abu Ali ibn Sina (d. A.D. 1037) was known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna. An analysis of the sources and evolution of Avicenna's metaphysics, this book focuses on the answers he and his predecessors gave to two fundamental pairs of questions: what is the soul and how does it cause the body; and what is God and how does He cause the world? To respond to these challenges, Avicenna invented new concepts and (...) distinctions and reinterpreted old ones. The author concludes that Avicenna's innovations are a turning point in the history of metaphysics. Avicenna's metaphysics is the culmination of a period of synthesis during which philosophers fused together a Neoplatonic project (reconciling Plato with Aristotle) with a Peripatetic project (reconciling Aristotle with himself). Avicenna also stands at the beginning of a period during which philosophers sought to integrate the Arabic version of the earlier synthesis with Islamic doctrinal theology (kalam). Avicenna's metaphysics significantly influenced European scholastic thought, but it had an even more profound impact on Islamic intellectual history--the philosophical problems and opportunities associated with the Avicennian synthesis continued to be debated up to the end of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Morphology is the science of form. The word is used in various scientific disciplines, e.g. in geography, linguistics, etc., but it is most frequently employed to denote that part of Biology which deals with the forms of organisms. The mere description of spatial relations, however, scarcely constitutes a science. It may be hard to say by what property science is distinguished from other human endeavors, but that factual description does not suffice is generally admitted. To establish relations between facts may (...) be taken as a preliminary answer. It would still remain to define these relations. The answer to that question, however, depends largely on the particular brand of philosophy to which an author happens to subscribe. Most answers have been formulated by focusing attention largely on physics and related sciences. (shrink)

According to the age-of-acquisition hypothesis, words acquired early in life are processed faster and more accurately than words acquired later. Connectionist models have begun to explore the influence of the age/order of acquisition of items (and also their frequency of encounter). This study attempts to reconcile two different methodological and theoretical approaches (proposed by Lambon Ralph & Ehsan, 2006 and Zevin & Seidenberg, 2002) to age-limited learning effects. The current simulations extend the findings reported by Zevin and Seidenberg (2002) that (...) have shown that frequency trajectories (FTs) have limited and specific effects on word-reading tasks. Using the methodological framework proposed by Lambon Ralph and Ehsan (2006), which makes it possible to compare word-reading and picture-naming tasks in connectionist networks, we were able to show that FT has a considerable influence on age-limited learning effects in a picture naming task. The findings show that when the input–output mappings are arbitrary (simulating picture naming tasks), the links formed by the network become entrenched as a result of early experience and that subsequent variations in frequency of exposure of the items have only a minor impact. In contrast, when the mappings between input-output are quasi-systematic or systematic (simulating word-reading tasks), the training of new items was generalized and resulted in the suppression of age-limited learning effects. At a theoretical level, we suggest that FT, which simultaneously takes account of time and the level of exposure across time, represents a more precise and modulated measure compared with the order of introduction of the items and may lead to innovative hypotheses in the field of age-limited learning effects. (shrink)

The Liber de causis, a monotheistic reworking of Proclus' Elements of Theology, was translated from Arabic into Latin in the twelfth century, with an attribution to Aristotle. Considering this Neoplatonic text a product of Aristotle's school and even the completion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Albert the Great concluded his series of Aristotelian paraphrases by commenting on it. To do so was to invite controversy, since accidents of translation had made many readers think that the Liber de causis taught that God made (...) only the first creature, which in turn created the diverse multitude of lesser things. Thus, Albert's contemporaries in the Christian West took the text to uphold the supposedly Aristotelian doctrine that from the One only one thing can emanate--a doctrine they rejected, believing as they did that God freely determined the number and kinds of creatures. Albert, however, defended the philosophers against the theologians of his day, denying that the thesis "from the One only one proceeds" removed God's causality from the diversity and multiplicity of our world. This Albert did by appealing to a greater theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and equating the being that is the subject of metaphysics with the procession of Being from God's intellect, a procession Dionysius described in On the Divine Names. Creation as Emanation examines Albert's reading of the Liber de causis with an eye toward two questions: First, how does Albert view the relation between faith and reason, so that he can identify creation from nothing with emanation from God? And second, how does he understand Platonism and Aristotelianism, so that he can avoid the misreadings of his fellow theologians by finding in a late-fifth-century Neoplatonist the key to Aristotle's meaning? (shrink)

Is a policy of economic growth compatible with the neutrality of the State? Some liberals (Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman, Larmore, Kymlicka) think so. I do not. I begin by explaining and discussing the different meanings of the neutrality thesis, then I show that, whatever meaning we give to the idea of neutrality, it is very difficult to argue convincingly that a policy of economic growth does not favour some conceptions of the good.

Dans les premières années qui ont suivi la parution de son monumentalA Theory of Justice, Rawls s'est surtout employé dans quelques articles à répondre à ses critiques, à dissiper les malentendus ainsi qu'à expliciter certains aspects de sa théorie, sans proposer de changements significatifs. À partir de la publication desDewey Lectures, sous la pression des critiques ou suivant le cours naturel de sa réflexion, Rawls a graduellement procéde à d'importantes révisions. Presque essentiellement préoccupé par la signification et la justification de (...) sa théorie, et laissant à peu prés intacts sa structure et son contenu, Rawls a successivement élaboré une conception de la personne et de la société, développé une méthodologie contextualiste et constructiviste, limité considérablement la portée de sa théorie et finalement, pour encadrer le tout, proposé une interprétation politique de la «justice en tant qu'équité». Ces changements, que d'aucuns ont perçus comme un recul ou comme un important virage, n'ont pas toujours été, selon Rawls, bien compris. Dans son dernier ouvrage,Political Liberalism, qui, est-il besoin de le dire? était depuis longtemps attendu, Rawls rassemble et raffine ses nouvelles idées, les présente de façon systématique et, somme toute, convaincante. (shrink)

Following a summary of M. Breaugh’s book The Plebeian Experience, the question of the relationship of plebs and class is addressed. Drawing on N. Thoburn’s discussion of the ‘lumpenproletariat’ as well as E.P. Thompson’s conception of class, the case is made for keeping ‘plebeian’ and ‘class’ experiences in conceptual tension.

The judgement of human ability is ubiquitous, from school admissions to job performance reviews. The exact make-up of ability traits, however, is often narrowly defined and lacks a comprehensive basis. We attempt to simplify the spectrum of human ability, similar to how five personality traits are widely believed to describe most personalities. Finding such a basis for human ability would be invaluable since neuropsychiatric disease diagnoses and symptom severity are commonly related to such differences in performance. Here, we identified four (...) underlying ability traits within the National Institutes of Health Toolbox normative data (n= 1, 369): (1) Motor-endurance, (2) Emotional processing, (3) Executive and cognitive function, and (4) Social interaction. We used the Human Connectome Project young adult dataset (n= 778) to show that Motor-endurance and Executive and cognitive function were reliably associated with specific brain functional networks (r2= 0.305 ± 0.021), and the biological nature of these ability traits was also shown by calculating their heritability (31 and 49%, respectively) from twin data. (shrink)

This book closely examines our commonly held beliefs about human suffering, and offers unique insights into God's role in why we suffer. Dr. Perri critically examines what it means to be human from a Judeo-Christian perspective, and extrapolates from the work of Carl Gustav Jung showing a deeply complex development of human transcendence in human suffering. On an interpersonal level, Dr. Perri elaborates on the work of Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas and shows how our suffering can be shared and (...) lessened by our unconditionality and presence for the other. Scriptural passages are quoted from both the Hebrew and New Testament texts, and are used to depict the suffering of humankind as seen in the face of Job. It was this face, according to Perri, that Jesus saw in the faces of those He came to redeem, and that ultimately brought Him to the crucifix of redemption. Dr. Perri challenges Sartre's position that our existence precedes our essence, and draws on the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Christian theology in this regard. He further elaborates a neurodevelopmental paradigm that creates essence as the basis of our freedom to choose. This book can be read and studied by both professionals in the helping and healing professions, and lay persons seeking to better understand our suffering, and how to better help those who suffer. Dr. Perri offers specific ways in how to be present for those who suffer, how to read and receive the hidden language of human suffering, and how to use silence as a communication skill. (shrink)

The draft Code of Conduct for Research is an important initiative towards assisting the scientific community in complying with the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). However, its approach towards cross-border data sharing should be reconsidered to clarify the ambiguities inherent in the legal requirements for the cross-border sharing of health data in the POPIA. These ambiguities include the concept of ‘transfer of information’, the application of adequacy as a legal mechanism for transfer, the (...) nature of consent for cross-border sharing and the scope of the recipient third party. We suggest that the draft Code of Conduct for Research can be improved by: Explaining or defining the concept of ‘transfer of information’ and when it applies to cross-border sharing in research Clarifying the application of adequacy as a legal mechanism for transfer vis-à-vis the other alternatives Expanding on the interpretation and application of consent as a legal mechanism for cross-border transfers Expanding the category of persons who may be recipients of personal information in a third country. (shrink)

O objetivo desta reflexão é estabelecer um diálogo entre os espaços da educação, filosofia e política, buscando construir pontes entre eles. Seu embasamento teórico se refere à crítica ao capitalismo e ao conceito de reificação, a partir de autores da Escola de Frankfurt, de Foucault e de Benjamin. Um episódio ocorrido em 29 de abril de 2015 foi escolhido para análise por representar um evento paradoxal nos campos e conceitos apontados. Concluímos que é necessário se repensar novas ações entre as (...) práticas educativas, as ações políticas e os saberes filosóficos, nos quais seus sujeitos sociais tenham disponibilidade ao diálogo, ao respeito e à democracia. (shrink)

This article reviews empirical evidence and ethical norms in cross-linguistic nursing. Empirical evidence highlights that linguistic barriers between nurses and patients can perpetuate discrimination and compromise nursing care. There are significant organizational and relational challenges involved in ensuring adequate use of interpreters by nurses. Some evidence suggests that linguistic barriers are particularly problematic for nurses when compared with physicians. A comparative analysis of nursing ethical norms for cross-linguistic nursing was conducted using the codes of ethics of the American Nurses Association, (...) the Canadian Nurses Association, and the International Council of Nurses. Five principal ethical norms for cross-linguistic nursing were identified: (1) respect for the patient as a unique person; (2) respect for the patient’s right to self-determination; (3) respect for patient privacy and confidentiality; (4) responsibility for one’s own competence, judgment, and action; and (5) responsibility to promote action better to meet the needs of patients, families, and groups. (shrink)