Little consensus exists about the effectiveness of transnational private governance in domains such as labor, the environment, or human rights. The paper builds on recent scholarship on labor standards to emphasize the role of labor agency in transnational private governance. It argues that the relationship between transnational private regulatory initiatives and labor agency depends on three competences: first, the ability of workers’ organizations to gain access to processes of employment regulation, implementation, and monitoring; second, their ability to insist on the (...) inclusion of employers and state agencies within such processes; and third, the ability of workers to effectively exercise leverage in pursuit of particular goals. The paper develops a framework, called hybrid production regime, for examining how workers’ capacity to act at the local level depends on how these three collective competences are addressed in the institutionalization of capital–labor relations between the transnational and national levels. (shrink)

Zsfassung in engl. und russ. Sprache. - Engl. Zsfassung u.d.T.: Civilization in the Polish thought.

Die internationalen Beiträge untersuchen das durch neuere Subjektkonzeptionen und Geschichtsmodelle eröffnete theoretische Feld aus der Perspektive von Philosophie, Geschichts-, Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft und überprüfen dabei die Wechselverhältnisse sowie Denk- und Darstellungsweisen von Subjekten und Geschichte(n) auf ihre epistemischen, ästhetischen und handlungstheoretischen Konsequenzen.

This is the first volume devoted to the aesthetics of the Graz school. V. Raspa’s introduction gives an outline of the aesthetic themes and exponents of the school. D. Jacquette argues for a Meinongian subjectivistic aesthetic value theory. B. Langlet deals with aesthetic properties and emotions. Ch.G. Allesch presents Witasek's aesthetics in its historical context. Í. Vendrell Ferran investigates the aesthetic experience and quasi-feelings in Meinong, Witasek, Saxinger and Schwarz. R. Martinelli illustrates the musical aesthetics of Ehrenfels, Höfler and (...) Witasek. P. Mahr asks if object-theoretical aesthetics is possible at all. M. Potrc and V. Strahovnik concentrate on Veber's aesthetic judgment. N. Dolcini deals with the migration of ficta, and F. Orilia with words and pictures in fictional stories. (shrink)

Many believe that equality of opportunity will be achieved when the prospects of children no longer depend upon the wealth and education of their parents. The institution through which the link between child and parental prospects may be weakened is public education. Many also believe that democracy is the political institution that will bring about justice. This study, first published in 2006, asks whether democracy, modeled as competition between political parties that represent different interests in the polity, will result in (...) educational funding policies that will, at least eventually, produce citizens who have equal capacities, thus breaking the link between family background and child prospects. In other words, will democracy engender, through the educational finance policies it produces, a state of equal opportunity in the long run? (shrink)

The essay gives an account of the aesthetics of the Graz school, focusing on the standpoint of the object as well as on that of emotions. Meinong’s reflection on aesthetics stems from a psychological background and comes subsequently to an ontological grounding. After examining the notions of imagination, phantasy-representation, relation and complexion, I show how the theory of production of representations, as well as that of higher-order objects, develops under the impulse of Ehrenfels’ concept of Gestalt qualities; both these (...) theories may be applied to aesthetics in the explanation of artistic creation and of aesthetic objects. Meinong identifies the specific object of aesthetics with the “objective” and distinguishes aesthetic feelings, which are true feelings, from imaginary ones. Witasek develops a psychological aesthetics built on the conceptual framework of Meinongian philosophy: aesthetic properties are ideal and extra-objective, they connect the aesthetic object to the subject’s mental attitude; an aesthetic object is an object endowed with aesthetic properties, such as beauty, which depends on the degree of pleasure or displeasure the object may induce in the subject. Witasek, though, parts from Meinong on both the conception of aesthetic objects and of imaginary feelings. In the last sections, I review the reactions to Witasek’s aesthetics, both positive and negative, within the Graz school itself (in particular Schwarz’ and Saxinger’s ideas on phantasy-feelings, and Ameseder’s on value beauty), and I sketch Ehrenfels’ and Veber’s aesthetic views. (shrink)

This volume, originating from the centennial Second International Conference Graz 1977-2017 on Franz Brentano's philosophy, collects eighteen essays written by nineteen distinguished specialists covering the main areas of Brentano's philosophy: his epistemology, ontology, ethics, and logic, and his contributions to psychology and philosophy of mind. Its goal is to explore the significance and impact of Brentano's thought, to promote a deepening of the ongoing renaissance of interest in Brentano, and to advance the project of understanding Brentano's actual philosophical positions (...) and correcting entrenched misunderstandings. (shrink)

The most obvious varieties of mental phenomena directed to non- existent objects occur in our experiences of works of art. The task of applying the Meinongian ontology of the non-existent to the working out of a theory of aesthetic phenomena was however carried out not by Meinong by his disciple Stephan Witasek in his Grundzüge der allgemeinen Ästhetik of 1904. Witasek shows in detail how our feelings undergo certain sorts of structural modifications when they are directed towards what does not (...) exist. He draws a distinction between genuine mental phenomena and what he calls `phantasy-material', asserting that `the job of the aesthetic object, whether it is a work of art or a product of nature, is to excite and support the actualisation of phantasy-material in the experiencing subject'. We might think of such phantasy-material as a matter of Ersatz-emotions or emotional `slop'. We could then see Witasek's aesthetics as an elaborate taxonomy of the various different sorts of Ersatz-emotions which the subject allows to be stimulated within himself in his intercourse with works of art, and see works of art themselves as machines for the production of ever more subtle varieties of such phantasy-material in the perceiving subject. (shrink)

The development of the systematic ontology of Bergmannes posthumous 1992 work New Foundations of Ontology from its roots in his early criticisms of R. Camap's work on semantics to his acceptance of fundamental Meinongian ideas, is traced, critically examined and compared to views of others, such as G.E. Moore, B. Russell, W.V. Quine, and J. Searle. The discussion, focusing on main themes of his final metaphysical system, deals with problems posed by universals and particulars, predication and the Bradley "paradox", facts, (...) truth, intentionality and non-existent objectives, classes and the membership relation, logic and the analytic-synthetic distinction, arithmetic and logicism, ontological categories and canons, modalities, internal relations, and the question of the phenomenological ground of ontological claims. Some of the critical analyses are developed into alternative analyses. (shrink)

The development of the systematic ontology of Bergmannes posthumous 1992 work New Foundations of Ontology from its roots in his early criticisms of R. Camap's work on semantics to his acceptance of fundamental Meinongian ideas, is traced, critically examined and compared to views of others, such as G.E. Moore, B. Russell, W.V. Quine, and J. Searle. The discussion, focusing on main themes of his final metaphysical system, deals with problems posed by universals and particulars, predication and the Bradley "paradox", facts, (...) truth, intentionality and non-existent objectives, classes and the membership relation, logic and the analytic-synthetic distinction, arithmetic and logicism, ontological categories and canons, modalities, internal relations, and the question of the phenomenological ground of ontological claims. Some of the critical analyses are developed into alternative analyses. (shrink)

_The Philosophy of Brentano_ has as its goal to explore the significance and impact of Franz Brentano’s thought, to promote a deepening of the ongoing renaissance of interest in Brentano, and to advance the project of understanding Brentano’s actual philosophical positions and correcting entrenched misunderstandings.

PIATS 7: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995. 7 volumes. General Editor Ernst Steinkellner, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1997-98. ISBN 3-7001-2657-3/2658-1/2659-X/2712-X/2748-0/2749-9.