Psychologists and common sense recognize blaming the victim as a cognitive error (fallacy) that many of us use to support the just-world hypothesis — the view that life is basically fair. In this article Richard Double compares a related phenomenon, blaming the culprit. When we commit the fallacy of blaming the culprit we mistakenly conclude that judging a culprit to deserve blame for an action exonerates everyone else from blame for that action. Double provides several examples of (...) the fallacy. (shrink)

Beginning Philosophy offers students and general readers a uniquely straightforward yet challenging introduction to fundamental philosophical problems. Readily accessible to novices yet rich enough for more experienced readers, it combines serious investigation across a wide range of subjects in analytic philosophy with a clear, user-friendly writing style. Topics include logic and reasoning, the theory of knowledge, the nature of the external world, the mind/body problem, normative ethics, metaethics, free will, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. A (...) concluding chapter outlines the worldview developed in the text and connects that view to questions about the meaning of life. The interconnection of philosophical problems and the relationship of philosophy and science are emphasized throughout. The book includes both extensive quotes from historical figures such as Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume and references to philosophically minded nonphilosophers like Dostoevski, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan. Beginning Philosophy is designed for use in introductory philosophy courses at a wide range of institutions. It contains numerous pedagogical materials at the end of each chapter: sections called "misconceptions" list errors that introductory readers should avoid; guide questions prompt students to explain in their own words what the text is saying; review questions help students prepare for examinations; open-ended discussion questions call for independent judgment; and annotated bibliographies provide suggestions for further reading. The volume is further enhanced by a list of famous quotations from philosophers, a glossary of philosophical terms, a glossary of names of the most famous philosophers and scientists discussed in the text, and an extensive bibliography listing every work cited. (shrink)

This collection explores some of the many ways in which constitutional orders engage with, and are shaped by, their exteriors. Constitutional and legal theory often marginalize 'foreign' elements, such as norms originating in other legal systems, the movement of individuals across borders, or the application of domestic law to foreign affairs. In The Double-Facing Constitution, these instances of boundary crossing lie at the heart of an alternative understanding of constitutions as permeable membranes, through which norms can and sometimes must (...) travel. Constitutional orders are facing both inwards and outwards - and the outside world influences their interiors just as much as their internal orders help shape their surroundings. Different essays discuss the theoretical and historical foundations of this view, and its contemporary relevance for areas as diverse as migration law, the conflict of laws, and foreign relations law. (shrink)

Adi Da argues that no solutions currently proposed are sufficient to righten the present unsustainable trajectory of life on Earth, because there is no integrated approach to the ordering of society and use of the planet. The presumption of separateness—manifesting collectively as separate “tribes” vying for control—characterizes human affairs, rather than the prior (“a priori”) unity of existence. The struggle for dominance is the “stave in the wheels” of the Earth-system's inherent capacity to self-correct. A new institution, “the Global Cooperative (...) Forum,” is proposed—invoked by “everybody-all-at-once” (a global populace awakened as a single force, capable of cooperatively effecting global change). (shrink)

orbit and far beyond it. Indeed, the immense, painstaking, indefatigable and ever-improving effort of Husserl to find ever-deeper and more reliable foundations for the philosophical enterprise (as well as his constant critical re-thinking and perfecting of the approach and so called "method" in order to perform this task and thus cover in this source-excavation an ever more far-reaching groundwork) stands out and maintains itself as an inepuisable reservoir for philosophical reflec tion in which all the above-mentioned work has either (...) its core or its source. In fact, in his undertaking to re-think the entire philosophical enterprise as such and to recreate philosophy upon what he sought to be at least a satisfactorily legitimated basis, Husserl, through his already systematised and "authorized" work, and his courses, and later on in his spontaneous reflection (which did not find its way into a definitive corpus but was nevertheless sufficiently coherent with his previously established body of thought to be considered a continuation of it), uncovers perspectives upon the universe of man and projects their new philosophical thematisation that brings together all the attempts by philosophers (e. g., Merleau-Ponty, who drew upon this material and found there his own inspiration) who succeeded him with foundational intentions; it also gives a core of philosophical ideas and insights for the youngergenerationofphilosophers today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 67-76 [Access article in PDF] Double Religious Belonging:A Process Approach Jay McDaniel Hendrix College Increasingly, Christians in the United States are turning to Buddhism for spiritual insight and nourishment. Many are reading books about Buddhism, and some are also meditating, participating in Buddhist retreats, and studying under Buddhist teachers. As they do so, they approach what might be called "dual religious belonging."The phrase itself (...) can suggest at least three metaphors. We can imagine them (1) as people crossing a bridge into the world of Buddhism and who then return to Christianity with fresh insights; or (2) as people with two intravenous tubes in their arms, one providing fluid from a Buddhist lineage and one providing fluid from a Christian lineage, for the sake of a more complete life; or, shifting to a more organic metaphor, (3) as people with primary roots in Christian soil but with secondary roots in Buddhist soil, who receive anchorage and sustenance from both kinds of soils.Shortly I will draw upon the third metaphor to suggest the desirability of a "taproot" as opposed to a "fibrous" approach for such double belonging, at least in its initial stages. First, a word is in order about the philosophical backdrop for my approach, which draws upon the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its theological counterpart, process theology. Toward this end, I will draw upon the first metaphor: the bridge. A Bridge for Double Belonging Process theology emerged in the 1930s at the University of Chicago and has since been used by many Christians and some Buddhists, mainly but not exclusively Pure Land Buddhists, to interpret their respective religious perspectives. I myself have used this theology in several books to try to show how Christians can draw deeply from the wells of Buddhist insight and practice in ways that enrich and deepen Christian life.Process theology draws upon the "philosophy of organism" developed by the late philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead's philosophy is unique in that it has deep similarities with numerous Buddhist points of view even as it also offers a rich way of interpreting and appreciating core Christian insights. [End Page 67] It is no accident that process theologians such as John Cobb suggest that process theology is a way of seeing things—a theological bridge—that can help a Christian cross over into Buddhism, learn from it in deep ways, and return with fresh insights that enrich a walk with Christ; and that can also help Buddhists cross over into Christianity, learn from it in deep ways, and return with fresh insights for practicing the dharma.What, then, are the core teachings of process theology? If we imagine process theology as a wooden bridge, here would be ten of its planks:There are many worlds beyond words, which can be known in many ways, including prayer and meditation, empathy and imagination, intuition and mindful perception.Human life consists of a series of moments of experience, each of which includes, and is dependent on, the whole of the universe.The universe is an unfolding process that is never the same at two instants.Humans and other living beings have no substantial or permanent self that separates them from the surrounding world.Ultimate reality is a nonstatic and nondualistic Emptiness of which all things are manifestations: with Emptiness referring to (a) the emptiness of words and concepts as adequate descriptions of things as they are, (b) the sheer presence of things as they are in their suchness, (c) the absence of a self-contained substantiality or "own being" within things, (d) the sheer interconnectedness of all things, (e) the pure becoming of all things.There is a womblike presence—God—who shares in the joys and sufferings of each living being, and who is herself an example of no-self, interdependence, pure becoming, of the Emptiness described above.God is present within each living being an in-dwelling lure toward wisdom and compassion.God's presence is also found between humans, when they live in community with one another in a... (shrink)

Privacy, Due process and the Computational Turn: The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology engages with the rapidly developing computational aspects of our world including data mining, behavioural advertising, iGovernment, profiling for intelligence, customer relationship management, smart search engines, personalized news feeds, and so on in order to consider their implications for the assumptions on which our legal framework has been built. The contributions to this volume focus on the issue of privacy, which is often equated (...) with data privacy and data security, location privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, unobservability, and unlinkability. Here, however, the extent to which predictive and other types of data analytics operate in ways that may or may not violate privacy is rigorously taken up, both technologically and legally, in order to open up new possibilities for considering, and contesting, how we are increasingly being correlated and categorizedin relationship with due process – the right to contest how the profiling systems are categorizing and deciding about us. (shrink)

This article offers a philosophical reflection on ambivalences inherent in the notion of craft analogy in the thought of Zhuangzi and Aristotle. Does it make sense to establish the analogy between the structure of the good conduct of life and the structure of the successful performance of craft? In turn, what are the reasons for rejecting this analogy? This study shows that both philosophers had strong reasons both for their commitment to some aspects of the analogy and for its decisive (...) denial in other respects. However, their particular reasons for this ambiguous view on the craft analogy are remarkably different and even opposite. This divergence owes to some central cosmological and ontological commitments that undergird their theories of action; while Aristotle’s conception of the human world calls for conscious interference and deliberate action, Zhuangzi’s view is that ideal action should spontaneously follow the order immanent in all things. (shrink)

Starting from the experience of the Other, phenomenology takes otherness as something which withdraws from my own experience and exceeds the limits of our common orders. Radical otherness is something extraordinary, arising in my own body, situated between us and striking us before we look for it. Psychiatry confronts us with a peculiar sort of pathological otherness which in ethnopsychiatry is doubled to an otherness of a higher degree. We encounter the anomalies of other orders as if we were dipping (...) into the Other’s shadow. This brings up many questions. How is the pathic related to the pathological, the normal to the abnormal? How can psychiatry take account of the intercultural Other without sacrificing its otherness to universal points of view? How is the unconsciousness of our own culture connected with that of other cultures? To what extent does intercultural otherness affect our intracultural otherness? Is there an alternative to the extremes of fundamentalism and globalism, which tend either to repress otherness or to level it? (shrink)

It has been almost 20 years since the field of bioethics was galvanized by a controversial series of multinational AZT trials employing placebo controls on pregnant HIV-positive women in the developing world even though a standard of care existed in the sponsor countries. The trove of ethical investigations that followed was thoughtful and challenging, yet an important and problematic methodological assumption was left unexplored. In this article, I revisit the famous “double standard of care” case study in (...) class='Hi'>order to offer novel consideration of the placebo orthodoxy that underlies much of the ethical debate. This majority view found in medical research is that placebo-controlled trials are methodologically superior to comparative trials that use active controls. I challenge this orthodoxy and argue that lives were unnecessarily lost in these trials as a result. Furthermore, current HIV research on vaccines and microbicides is now poised to repeat the error of subscribing to the placebo orthodoxy. (shrink)

Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and (...) enriches our understanding of modernism. Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison. In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic. (shrink)

Qu'ils soient en ligne ou hors ligne, les mondes virtuels cristallisent nombre d'espoirs, de craintes, de fantasmes liés à l'innovation technologique, à la gestion et aux formes de l'identité contemporaine, et à l'évolution des médias de communication. Les emplois désordonnés de la notion d'avatar et les projections associées témoignent des paradoxes à l'oeuvre dès lors que l'on tente de comprendre des pratiques et des technologies nouvelles. Mais l'avatar ne représentant qu'une partie du mode opératoire d'une personne dans un monde virtuel, (...) il conviendra, dans une approche systémique, de préciser l'étendue de la présence du sujet dans ces mondes pour mieux informer la notion de données personnelles dans ce contexte spécifique.Comment ces identités et données virtuelles sont-elles gérées, traitées, appréhendées individuellement et collectivement, tant par les internautes que par les acteurs techniques et industriels?Virtual worlds, whether multiplayer online games or three-dimensional virtual worlds like Second Life, crystallize a multitude of hopes, fears and fantasies that are linked with technological innovation, with contemporary forms of identity and their management, and with developments in communication media. Today s unregulated uses of the avatar concept and associated projections reveal the paradoxes that arise when we attempt to understand new practices and technologies. However, the avatar only partially represents the way people function in a digital world, and any systemic study therefore needs to specify the extent of the subject's presence in a virtual world, in order to give a clearer idea of what is personal data in this specific context. How are these virtual identities and items of information managed, treated and individually and collectively apprehended, by Web surfers themselves and by the technical and industrial spheres concerned? (shrink)

In the fourteenth century, Duns Scotus suggested that the proper analysis of modality required not just moments of time but also “moments of nature”. In making this suggestion, he broke with an influential view first presented by Diodorus in the early Hellenistic period, and might even be said to have been the inventor of “possible worlds”. In this essay we take Scotus’ suggestion seriously devising first a double-index logic and then introducing the temporal order. Finally, using the temporal (...) order, we define a modal order. This allows us to present modal logic without the usual interpretive questions arising concerning the relation called variously ‘accessibility’, ‘alternativeness’, and, ‘relative possibility.’ The system in which this analysis is done is one of those which have come to be called a hybrid logic. (shrink)

What role do science and scientists play in the transition between food regimes? Scientific communities are integral to understanding political struggle during food regime transitions in part due to the broader scientization of politics since the late 1800s. While social movements contest the rules of the game in explicitly value-laden terms, scientific communities make claims to the truth based on boundary work, or efforts to mark some science and scientists as legitimate while marking others as illegitimate. In doing so, scientific (...) communities attempt to establish and maintain the privileged position of science in contests over policy. In this paper, we situate scientific boundary work within its world historical context in order to ask two key questions: (1) how does scientific boundary work vary across food regimes; and, in turn, (2) what role does scientific boundary work play in the political contestation that drives transitions between food regimes? We explore these questions through the case of one scientific community—the AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Communities)—involved in food safety regulation across the British, US, and corporate food regimes. We argue that scientific boundary work is shaped by historically specific patterns of social conflict within food regimes and, in particular, the double-movement dynamics that Polanyi (The great transformation: the political and economic origins of our times. Boston: Beacon, 1957[1944]) theorizes. Moreover, as scientific communities reconstruct their internal rules, norms, and procedures to claim their own legitimacy in relation to prevailing forms of social conflict, they also reshape who sets scientific agendas and thus the knowledge available for making new rules within periods of food regime transition. To elaborate this argument in theoretical terms, we build on recent efforts to integrate a neo-Polanyian perspective into food regime analysis and link this to research on scientific boundary work by scholars in science and technology studies. (shrink)

The philosophical significance attached to the construction of systems of units has traditionally been confined to the notion of convention, while their adoption was considered to be the exclusive province of the history and sociology of science. Against this tradition, a close articulation between history, philosophy, and sociology of science is needed in order to analyse the recent reform of the International system of units. In the new SI, units are redefined on the basis of certain fundamental constants of (...) nature, established by physical theories, whose values are fixed without uncertainty. The purpose of this article is to show that the redefinition of SI units, far from being a convention, involves a holistic reconstruction of our concepts of quantities from accepted theoretical laws. Fixing the values of the defining constants stabilizes these laws within the framework of physics through a twofold adjustment procedure that ensures both a semantic coordination between theory and world and an intersubjective coordination between human agents required by social activities. This double adjustment implies a treatment of uncertainties that results in closely entwining the pursuit of truth as correspondence and truth as coherence which turn out to be complementary, thus highlighting the anthropological underpinnings of scientific realism. (shrink)

If the twentieth century was the age of the world picture taken as a photograph of the Whole Earth from outer space, today’s observations of the planet are produced by means of computer simulation. Pandemic models are of paramount sociological interest in this respect, since modelling contagion is closely intertwined with modelling the material connectivities of social life. By envisioning the global dynamics of disease transmission, pandemic simulations enact the relationscapes of a transnational world. This article seeks to (...) analyse such an enactment: It asks how simulation methods can establish a particular relation to the social from within the social. To provide an answer to this question, and adopting Niklas Luhmann’s theory of world society, pandemic simulations are described as modes of global self-observation that can be specified factually, socially, spatially and temporally. They instantiate a ‘doubling of reality’ designed to apprehend the potential future threat of disease transmission along the pathways marked by global infrastructures. They constitute scopic regimes that virtually synthesize a global situation of universal communicability in order to turn the world into an object of political intervention. (shrink)

This article strongly argues the priority of symbolic, especially discursive, action over the material order in the genesis of social things. What turns a piece of stuff into a social object is its embedment in a narrative construction. The attribution of an active or a passive role to things in relation to persons is thus essentially story-relative: nothing happens or exists in the social world unless it is framed by human performative activity. Drawing on Gibson's notion of `affordance', (...) Harré affirms that material things may be disposed towards many different usages, and may acquire multiple identities according to different narrative constructions, even though the range of their possible `existences' is constrained by certain material features. Objects acquire their full significance only if one takes account of their double role in both the `practical' order, which includes social arrangements for maintaining life, and the `expressive' order, which creates hierarchies of honour and status, and which enjoys priority over the former. Reasoning from a microsociological constructionist perspective, Harré restates his view that there is nothing else to social life but symbolic exchanges and joint management of meaning, including the meaning of things; the illusion that some thing is real is merely an effect of certain interpretational grammars which remain stable across the generations or even the centuries. (shrink)

This study aims to unpack policy evaluation and measurement of creating world-class universities in China from an integrated policy analysis. Specifically, an integrated policy analysis of policy evaluation of creating world-class universities concentrated on exploring the world class evaluation index released by the university rankings organization and the scholars’ views on the assessment criteria for world-class disciplines. The characteristics of policy evaluation of creating world-class (First-Class) universities included adhering to diversified comprehensive evaluation; clear educational objectives (...) and positioning; taking students as the foundation and cultivate first-class talents and paying attention to scientific research and produce first-class achievements. In the meanwhile, problems existing in the policy evaluation of creating world-class universities were also explored in this study. The suggestion and implications were offered to deepen theoretical research and enhance the practical effect of third-party evaluation and improve the evaluation system for "Double Tops" construction and balance the two characteristics of "Chinese characteristics" and "world-class" and respect the development rules of universities and disciplines and create a systematic ecology of orderly competition. (shrink)

In this book, Nicolas Laos studies the meaning of the terms "world" and "order," the moral dimensions of each world order model, and wider issues of meaning and interpretation generated by humanity's attempt to live in a meaningful world and to find the logos of the beings and things in the world. The aim of this book is to propose a unified theory of world order (i.e., a theory that combines philosophy, theology, (...) and political theory). In this context, the author provides a thought-provoking (re)interpretation of classical philosophy (placing particular emphasis on Platonism), an in-depth inquiry into medieval philosophy and spirituality (placing particular emphasis on the cultural differences between the Greek East and the Latino-Frankish West), and an intellectually challenging review and evaluation of modern Western philosophy (including Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, and Heidegger) and of Nietzsche's and the postmodernists' revolt against modernity. He then elucidates the philosophical foundations and "pedigree" of each of the three basic political theories of modernity (i.e., Liberalism, Communism, and Fascism), and he studies the basic theoretical debates in International Relations, Geopolitics, and Noopolitics. Finally, Laos proposes a new, "fourth," political theory which he calls "metaphysical republicanism.". (shrink)

The present article analyzes the world order in the past, present and future as well as the main factors, foundations and ideas underlying the maintaining and change of the international and global order. The first two sections investigate the evolution of the world order starting from the ancient times up to the late twentieth century. The third section analyzes the origin and decline of the world order based on the American hegemony. The authors (...) reveal the contradictions of the current unipolar world and explain in what way globalization has become more profitable for the developing countries but not for the developed ones. In the paper also explains the strengthening belief that the US leading status will inevitably weaken. In this connection we discuss the alternatives of the American strategy and the possibility of the renaissance of the American leadership. The last section presents a factor analysis which allows stating that the world is shifting toward a new balance of power and is likely to become the world without a leader. The new world order will consist of a number of large blocks, coalitions and countries acting within a framework of rules and mutual responsibility. However, the transition to a new world order will take certain time (about two decades). This period, which we denote as the epoch of new coalitions, will involve a reconfiguration of the World System and bring an increasing turbulence and conflict intensity. (shrink)

This book examines the role of civilizations in the context of the existing and possible world orders from a cross-cultural perspective. Seeking to clarify the meaning of such complex and contested notions as "civilization," "order," and "world order," it takes into account political, economic, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of social life.

Drawing on evolutionary epistemology, process ontology, and a social-cognition approach, this book suggests cognitive evolution, an evolutionary-constructivist social and normative theory of change and stability of international social orders. It argues that practices and their background knowledge survive preferentially, communities of practice serve as their vehicle, and social orders evolve. As an evolutionary theory of world ordering, which does not borrow from the natural sciences, it explains why certain configurations of practices organize and govern social orders epistemically and normatively, (...) and why and how these configurations evolve from one social order to another. Suggesting a multiple and overlapping international social orders' approach, the book uses three running cases of contested orders - Europe's contemporary social order, the cyberspace order, and the corporate order - to illustrate the theory. Based on the concepts of common humanity and epistemological security, the author also submits a normative theory of better practices and of bounded progress. (shrink)

In light of world globalization, three visions of the world order have been examined. The naive cosmopolitanism has been examined first and then rejected as being unrealistic because it overlooks the reasons for state pluralism in the international order. On this naive view, the world state is the only source of sovereignty and the individual is the only focal point of moral concern. Second subject matter of our investigation were Kantian and Rawlsian views which still (...) defend the state-centered view on international relations with peoples as a major subject of moral concern. However, on Rawls view, the principle of peoples' self-determination should be combined with the principles of universal morality which protect some individuals' fundamental rights thus enabling his theory to be classified into moderate liberal internationalism. Third, the idea of functional sovereignty as a foundation of the system of international sovereignty has been abandoned as being too unrealistic given recent tendencies in the world which associate the identities of individuals with cultures and civilizations rather than with practices and professions. Finally, some reasons have been given for preferring Rawlsian approach. The major reason is that there are close cultural ties between nations and their states and that this fact can contribute greatly to the resolution of coordination problem among states both internally and externally.. Pokusacemo, krecuci se u oblasti politicke normativne teorije, i to pre svega u okviru problema vezanih za analizu pojma suvereniteta drzave i teorije medjunarodnih odnosa, da na adekvatan nacin pojmovno odgovorimo na kulturne, politicke i ekonomske fenomene u svetu koji se u strucnoj literaturi, a i u javnosti uopste, cesto jednim imenom nazivaju "globalizacija". Razmotricemo pre svega klasicno shvacen pojam suvereniteta i ispitacemo kakvu ulogu taj pojam moze da ima u jednoj normativnoj viziji savremenih medjunarodnih odnosa. Branice se teza da uprkos globalizacijskim trendovima u svetu, drzavno shvatanje suvereniteta vezano za pojam nacije-drzave mozda treba i dalje da ima kljucnu ulogu u sistemu medjunarodnih odnosa jer je to najcelishodniji nacin da se ostvare zahtevi za pravdom i mirom na nivou kolektivnog delanja naroda kako unutar drzave tako i na medjunarodnom planu. (shrink)

The European Union (EU) is known as the strongest advocate of the liberal global order. It is invested in the idea of rule-based international order, which forms part of its core identity. This adherence to the principles of the liberal global order is visible in its support for multilateral institutions and norms; open market and liberal trade regimes; approaches to security; emphasis on human rights; and democratic norms and values. With the growing uncertainty in the global (...) class='Hi'>order, the EU's commitment to the above stated norms has become much more crucial than before. The objective of the study is to understand the shifting dynamics of the liberal world order as it was established at the end of the Second World War and how the EU is responding to these changes. (shrink)

This essay engages critically with Adrian Pabst’s ‘Liberal World Order and Its Critics’, Christian Reus-Smit’s ‘On Cultural Diversity’, and Hal Brands’ and Charles Edel’s ‘The Lessons of Tragedy’. What holds these three (very different) books together is that they revolve around the theme of ‘the crisis of liberal world order’. In this essay, I do not wish to dispute the claim that the liberal world order is in crisis – indeed, I accept this common (...) starting-off point of the four authors as a fact. What distinguishes my take on the ‘crisis of liberal world’ order from the books under review, however, is that I develop an alternative angle on the very idea of ‘crisis’: By understanding crisis as an incitement to judgement, deliberation and, ultimately, political action, I excavate the constructive potential of crisis; and, through the critical engagement with the three books under review, I seek to lay bare the intimate bond that connects ‘crisis’, ‘human diversity’, and ‘tragedy’, and to revive the constructive potential of these themes as ‘opportunities not to be wasted’. (shrink)

The present working paper analyzes the world order in the past, present and future as well as the main factors, foundations and ideas underlying the maintaining and change of the international and global order. The first two sections investigate the evolution of the world order starting from the ancient times up to the late twentieth century. The third section analyzes the origin and decline of the world order based on the American hegemony. The (...) authors reveal contradictions of the current unipolar world and explain in what way globalization has become more profitable for the developing countries but not for the developed ones. The paper also explains the strengthening belief that the US leading status will inevitably weaken. In this connection we discuss the alternatives of the American strategy and the possibility of the renaissance of the American leadership. The last section presents a factor analysis which allows stating that the world is shifting toward a new balance of power and is likely to become the world without a leader. The new world order will consist of a number of large blocks, coalitions and countries acting within a framework of rules and mutual responsibility. However, the transition to a new world order will take certain time (about two decades). This period, which we denote as the epoch of new coalitions, will involve a reconfiguration of the World-System and bring an increasing turbulence and conflict intensity. There are grounds to conclude that in 2011–2012 the World-System experienced to some extent a phase transition to a qualitatively new state of global protest activity. This phase transition is shown to bear some resemblance to the one which the World-System experienced in the early 1960s. The first (after 1919) phase transition of this sort occurred in the early 1960s and was related to the growth of global informational connectivity after the World War II, as well as the improvement of the means of protest self-organization due to the spread of television, portable radio receivers, portable electric loud-speakers and other technologies of the Fourth Kondratieff Cycle. The phase transition of the early 2010s was prepared by a new wave of growth of global informational connectivity, as well as the improvement of the means of protest self-organization due to the spread of various technologies of the Fifth Kondratieff cycle (the Internet, satellite television, Twitter and other social networks, mobile telephony etc.). Similarly to what was observed during the Fourth Kondratieff Wave, during the Fifth Cycle while the spread of these technologies was going on for many years before 2011, their internal colossal potential for generating and spreading protest activity was realized in one leap, as a phase transition. (shrink)

Chantal Mouffe, in her contribution “Which world order: Cosmopolitan or multipolar?”, argues that the universality of democracy and human rights, as we understand them, is all too often taken for granted. Western politicians and political thinkers alike see it as an all-or-nothing matter: democracy and human rights are to be literally adopted, in the very same way as they are known in Western Europe or North America. All deviations from this model are by definition morally suspect. They thereby (...) overlook the fact that other societies might have developed institutions that are dissimilar to the ones we know, but that are similar in the degree to which they respect human dignity and create social justice. In other words, they fail to imagine that the “good regime” might come in different forms and versions. (shrink)

What might the project be of lyric poetry in late global capitalism in the early years of the new millennium which acknowledges both a post-romantic and modernist lineage, and which faces the critical challenge of postmodernist theorizing? This paper endeavors to respond to this question forwarding the Adorno-inspired viewpoint that the praxes of individual lyric poems reveal orientations of affirmation or negation be they intended or not. The thesis is stated that the “arguments” of modern poets are creative litigations posing (...) counter-worlds, constituting anti-worlds, and projecting ideal worlds. The philosophical anthropology that informs this thesis focuses on the homo duplex conception of man as a double being—as a unique human individual and as members of thehuman species socialized into the social life-world. Thus a counterworld privileges the human subject in society as homo externus, whereas an anti-world centers on the human subject as homo internus opposed, at odds, or turned away from the external social life-world. These reflections finally concentrate on Northrop Frye’s idea of a “third order of experience” that, in his words, contrasts with “an existing world and a world which may not exist but is pointed toby the articulate orders of experience... this world is frequently called… an unborn world, a world that never quite enters existence.”. (shrink)

What might the project be of lyric poetry in late global capitalism in the early years of the new millennium which acknowledges both a post-romantic and modernist lineage, and which faces the critical challenge of postmodernist theorizing? This paper endeavors to respond to this question forwarding the Adorno-inspired viewpoint that the praxes of individual lyric poems reveal orientations of affirmation or negation be they intended or not. The thesis is stated that the “arguments” of modern poets are creative litigations posing (...) counter-worlds, constituting anti-worlds, and projecting ideal worlds. The philosophical anthropology that informs this thesis focuses on the homo duplex conception of man as a double being—as a unique human individual and as members of the human species socialized into the social life-world. Thus a counter-world privileges the human subject in society as homo externus, whereas an anti-world centers on the human subject as homo internus opposed, at odds, or turned away from the external social life-world. These reflections finally concentrate on Northrop Frye’s idea of a “third order of experience” that, in his words, contrasts with “an existing world and a world which may not exist but is pointed to by the articulate orders of experience... this world is frequently called… an unborn world, a world that never quite enters existence.”. (shrink)

Differences between human beings have long been used to justify a range of degrading, exclusionary, and murderous practices that strip people of their humanity and dignity. While considerable scholarship has been devoted to such dehumanization, Matthew S. Weinert asks how we might conceive its reverse—humanization, or what it means to “make human.” Weinert proposes an account of making human centered on five mechanisms: reflection, recognition, resistance, replication of dominant mores, and responsibility. Examining cases such as the UN Security Council’s engagements (...) with crises and the International Court of Justice’s grappling with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, he illustrates the distinct and contingent ways these mechanisms have been deployed. Theoretically, the cases evince a complex, evolving relationship between state-centric and human-centric views of society, ultimately revealing the normative potentialities of both. Though the case studies concern specific human relations issues on an international level, Weinert argues in favor of starting from the shared problem of being human and of living in a world in which the humanity of countless groups has been demeaned or denied. Working outward from that point, he proposes, we obtain a more pragmatically grounded understanding of the social construction of the human being. (shrink)

Theory of "conceptual pragmatism" takes into account both modern philosophical thought and modern mathematics. Stimulating discussions of metaphysics, a priori, philosophic method, much more.

Many developing and transitional countries have grown faster than advanced countries in the past decade, resulting in a shift in the distribution of world income in their favor. China is now the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States and ahead of Japan. As the relative economic weight of China and several others has come to match or exceed that of the middle-ranking G7 economies, the world economy has shifted from “unipolar” toward “multipolar,” less (...) dominated by the G7. How is this change being translated into changes in authority and influence within multilateral organizations like the G20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund? Alarm bells are ringing in G7 capitals about G7 loss of influence. According to a WikiLeaks cable from the senior U.S. official for the G20 process, from January 2010, “It is remarkable how closely coordinated the BASIC group of countries [Brazil, South Africa, India, China] have become in international fora, taking turns to impede US/eu initiatives and playing the US and EU off against each other.” This essay suggests that the shift in power is much smaller than the headlines or private alarm bells suggest. The United States remains the dominant state, and the G7 states together continue to exercise primacy, but now more fearfully and defensively. China is split between asserting itself as “the wave of the future” and defending itself as too poor to take on global responsibilities. The combination of G7 defensiveness and emerging states’ jealous guarding of sovereignty produces a spirit of Westphalian assertion in international fora, or “every state for itself.” On the assumption that the world economy is in a transitional period, the article suggests reforms in the G20 and the World Bank that would boost their role and legitimacy as multilateral organizations in a more multipolar world. (shrink)

Nowadays, people, states and international organizations feel more threatened and insecure, more than in the past, and this has contributed to an increase in need for security and the establishment of a new order and rules through which the world’s problems will be successfully solved. One of the leading countries is the People’s Republic of China, which is taking an increasing share on the global stage and is striving to reduce the dominance and role of the United States (...) and European countries. The rise of China as an economic, security-military and information-technological power has contributed to the shift of the centre of gravity and power from the West to the East, and a lot of opportunities have been created for other Asian countries to find their place and role and be an important subject in the new international structure. With the inclusion of new actors on the international stage, the balance of power changes and new rules of the game are imposed, contrary to the Western countries. The “new managers” are expected to have greater responsibility and influence in reforming the existing international institutions, as well as reducing the factors that cause instability and lead to an anarchic world order. However, due to the different values, interests and goals promoted by the PRC, a number of security implications of an international nature, intensification of geopolitical and geo-economics rivalries, polarization, emergence of new risks and dangers, and increased tension between great powers are expected. (shrink)

The essays look at the role of the military in the Cold War and after, and review the prospects for war and peace in the next century."--BOOK JACKET.

The present article analyzes the world order in the past, present and future as well as the main factors, foundations and ideas underlying the maintaining and change of the international and global order. The first two sections investigate the evolution of the world order starting from the ancient times up to the late twentieth century. The third section analyzes the origin and decline of the world order based on the American hegemony. The authors (...) reveal the contradictions of the current unipolar world and explain in what way globalization has become more profitable for the developing countries but not for the developed ones. The authors also explain the strengthening belief that the US leading status will inevitably weaken. In this connection we discuss the alternatives of the American strategy and the possibility of the renaissance of the American leadership. The last section presents a factor analysis which allows stating that the world is shifting toward a new balance of power and is likely to become the world without a leader. The new world order will consist of a number of large blocks, coalitions and countries acting within a framework of rules and mutual responsibility. However, the transition to a new world order will take certain time (about two decades). This period, which we denote as the epoch of new coalitions, will involve a reconfiguration of the World System and bring an increasing turbulence and conflict intensity. (shrink)

The Confucian doctrine of _tianxia_ outlines a unitary worldview that cherishes global justice and transcends social, geographic, and political divides. For contemporary scholars, it has held myriad meanings, from the articulation of a cultural imaginary and political strategy to a moralistic commitment and a cosmological vision. The contributors to _Chinese Visions of World Order_ examine the evolution of tianxia's meaning and practice in the Han dynasty and its mutations in modern times. They attend to its varied interpretations, its relation (...) to realpolitik, and its revival in twenty-first-century China. They also investigate tianxia's birth in antiquity and its role in empire building, invoke its cultural universalism as a new global imagination for the contemporary world, analyze its resonance and affinity with cosmopolitanism in East-West cultural relations, discover its persistence in China's socialist internationalism and third world agenda, and critique its deployment as an official state ideology. In so doing, they demonstrate how China draws on its past to further its own alternative vision of the current international system. Contributors. Daniel A. Bell, Chishen Chang, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Prasenjit Duara, Hsieh Mei-yu, Haiyan Lee, Mark Edward Lewis, Lin Chun, Viren Murthy, Lisa Rofel, Ban Wang, Wang Hui, Yiqun Zhou. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The central aim of Peter Hägel’s Billionaires in World Politics (BWP) is to challenge the assumption that private individuals lack agency and power in world politics – an assumption that is widely shared in the field of International Relations (IR). Hägel’s methodological strategy to achieve this aim is twofold. First, he concentrates on minutest biographical aspects of billionaires to lay bare the idiosyncrasy of their choices, and to falsify, thus, structuralist assumptions of how individual agency is undermined (...) by factors such as class, roles, or fields. Second, Hägel engages in counter-factual reasoning to support the claim that these individual decisions end up having a real impact on public affairs abroad. This impact is difficult to overestimate given that, as Hägel reveals, billionaires have affected a whole array of political issues, including Brexit, climate change policy, democratic development in Eastern Europe, global health policy, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and the war in Iraq. This introduction starts off by elaborating on the central scholarly contribution of BWP. Following that, this introduction explains why the insights that BWP provides suggest that we do not live in a neo-feudal order, despite the immense global economic inequality which billionaires’ wealth manifests. (shrink)