The self as the identification of the self with itself is a product of the dynamic transformation of European culture beginning in the Renaissance. The self, or absolute ego, was an outgrowth of the consciously rationalist spirit. However, modernity's Faustian drive was conscious paradoxically without being self conscious of itself or its cultural creations. Modernism deconstructed the values and assumptions of modernity. A casualty was the problematization of the self that had been banished and/or erased by formalism, structuralism and deconstruction. (...) The modernist self erases the absolute ego reconstructing it with a rich, complex, narrative idea of a self‐conscious relational self encompassing memory, repression, autobiography and history. This paper explores the modernist conception of self in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Proust demolishes the absolute ego in favor of the paradoxical self which knows itself only in relation to otherness actualized in persons and culture in the sacred time of existence. (shrink)

(1990). Fear and trembling and joyful wisdom1— The same book; A look at metaphoric communication. History of European Ideas: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 93-104.

We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the (...) ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. _Shame and Necessity_ gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. (shrink)

The main idea -- The functioning of a neuron -- Brain structure and function -- The general structure of the neural network -- Instincts, emotions, free will -- The nature of mental objects -- The rise and essence of (self-)consciousness -- Artificial intelligence -- Cognitive limitations of man.

Résumé Le traité De la Grandeur de Nicole étudie les sources et les formes de la noblesse. Après avoir présenté « la grandeur chrétienne » (le pouvoir politique est participation au pouvoir de Dieu ; l’ordre politique une « invention admirable » ; Pascal et Nicole), l’auteur définit une nouvelle signification de la grandeur glissant vers l’ordre de fonction. Abordant le difficile problème du grand chrétien, Nicole voit en lui un ministre et un modèle ; il dénonce la trahison des (...) grands et insiste sur le difficile salut du grand. La définition théorique du grand comme haut fonctionnaire élu par Dieu se révèle être exclusive de la réalité quotidienne, aussi bien pour le grand considéré comme ministre que pour le grand comme modèle. (shrink)

AT LEAST from the time of Descartes, there has been a growing tendency to understand freedom in terms of autonomy. Autonomy is taken to be, if not the exhaustive characteristic and measure of freedom, at least its principal one. In this context, autonomy is held to consist in being ruled exclusively by norms formulated and prescribed by oneself.

Food security and food self-sufficiency are important regional goals for the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). In the long run, success in these areas would reduce the incidence of drought-related mass starvation and the epidemic of malnutrition and undernutrition that exists among some tribal groups. For food production to improve, the governments must commit themselves to increasing the access of peasant farmers to critical agricultural inputs. If they do not take proper action in this area of development planning, domestic (...) food production is likely to stagnate or decline. This study is a broad examination of the relationship between government expenditures on imported inputs and the performance of the domestic food subsector. Because much data on government spending and agricultural production in Africa are unavailable, and those in published form are of suspect validity, the study is undertaken largely as a conceptual overview. The empirical analyses are conducted, therefore, largely to provide a staging ground for the conceptual arguments. (shrink)