Increasing interest in farmers’ local soil knowledge and soil management practice as a way to promote sustainable agriculture and soil conservation needs a reliable means to connect to it. This study sought to examine if Visual Soil Assessment and farmer workshops were suitable means to engage, communicate and preserve farmers’ LSK in two mountainous communes of Central Vietnam. Twenty-four farmers with reasonable or comprehensive LSK from previously studied communes were selected for the efficacy of VSA and farmer workshops for integrating (...) LSK into a well-accepted soil assessment tool. In field sites chosen by the farmers, VSA was independently executed by both farmers and scientists at the same time. Close congruence of VSA scores between the two groups highlighted that farmers could competently undertake VSA. Farmers’ VSA score was compared with their perception of field’s soil quality. For the majority of farmers’ perception of soil quality was consistent to their VSA score, while the remainder perceived their soil quality was lower than their VSA score. For most farmers their assessment of soil quality using VSA valued their LSK, and the two measures were well aligned. Soil colour and presence or vulnerability to erosion were common soil characteristics mentioned by farmers and affected the final VSA score. Farmers’ participation in VSA and workshops strengthen farmers’ confidence in their LSK and provided guidance on the impact of their soil management on soil improvement and conservation. (shrink)

Hegel’s political philosophy used to be judged mainly by the Philosophie des Rechts, and this book was interpreted differently by various students. More recently, serious account has been taken of Hegel’s earlier political writings, published and unpublished. Professor Ilting believes that Hegel’s real and liberal views were contained in lectures before and after the Ph. d. R. and that that book was a temporary aberration, a concession to the Carlsbad Decrees, and an attempt to satisfy the Prussian censor. Consequently he (...) is publishing what he regards as all the evidence for Hegel’s philosophy of natural law and the state from 1818 to 1833. The first volume is now before us; five are to follow, three of texts and two of commentary. The volumes are not sold separately; the price is DM 198 per volume. (shrink)

Among the most influential parts of the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel were his ethics, his theory of the state, and his philosophy of history. The Philosophy of Right, the last work published in Hegel's lifetime, is a combined system of moral and political philosophy, or a sociology dominated by the idea of the state. Here Hegel repudiates his earlier assessment of the French Revolution as a "a marvelous sunrise" in the realization of liberty. Rejecting the republican form of government, he (...) espouses an idealized form of a constitutional monarchy, whose ultimate power rests with the sovereign. (shrink)

Among the artifacts produced by nineteenth-century Quellenforschung, few have exerted more influence or endured more censure than the lost Hellenistic epyllion which, as reconstructed by G. Knaack, told of the journey of Phaethon to the palace of the sun-god and his disastrous ride in the solar car. Relying chiefly upon the two versions of the story told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses and Nonnus in the Dionysiaca , and applying techniques comparable to the stemmatic method of textual criticism, Knaack traced (...) every shared feature of these two accounts to the inevitable lost Hellenistic ‘original’. Details from Lucian and Philostratus , who were also presumed to have read this lost poem, helped to fill in the blanks. Knaack's thesis illustrates the extremes of which source criticism was capable at a time when it was naively assumed that Roman poets were capable of little more than literal translation of their Greek models. In the early part of this century, a reaction set in against Knaack's method, when it was alleged that there was no common source for the two poets and that Nonnus derived his account of Phaethon directly from his reading of Ovid. The case was first made by J. Braune, who examined four episodes common to both works – Phaethon, Cadmus, Actaeon, and Daphne – and argued that correspondences between the two are due to imitation of Ovid by Nonnus. Braune's arguments did not win complete acceptance; it is noteworthy that even his supporters were not entirely convinced by three of his four test passages, for which abundant evidence survives of sources earlier than Ovid. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in ContextPeter E. KnoxKathryn J. Gutzwiller. Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998. 358 pp.Cloth, $45.The publication of Alan Camerons The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes in 1993 set a coronis upon one stage in the efforts of modern scholars to sort out the untidy garden that we know as ancient Greek epigram. We now (...) know as much about the history of this corpus as we are likely to discover without the introduction of new evidence, and scholarly attention might logically be expected to return to the interpretation and criticism of these poems. Transmitted for the most part in the socalled Palatine Anthology and filtered through the agency of anthologists ancient and medieval, the epigrams of the ancient practitioners of this minor genre have tended to be studied individually, [End Page 628] like gemstones dislodged from their original settings. The luster of each piece may be easily admired, but what has been lost is the color and clarity that is imparted by the contrast with its neighbors. The ambitious task that Kathryn Gutzwiller has set herself in this closely argued and learned book is no less than to recover from the collecta membra of the Palatine Anthology the contours of the epigram books of nine poets from the early Hellenistic period to Meleager in the first century B.C.E.The opening chapter provides an introduction, which, taken together with the following chapter ("Hellenistic Epigram Books"), lays the foundation for the remainder of the work and establishes its basic premise, that all the Hellenistic epigrammatists composed their work for "publication" in carefully constructed books, arranged on principles which Gutzwiller can recover. This is the basis for what she terms "a new interpretative strategy" in the criticism of Hellenistic epigrams, "to read them as if"—her emphasis—"we knew their place in historical collections" (7). The remainder of the book is occupied by her reconstructions of the epigram books of Anyte, Nossis, Leonidas of Tarentum, Asclepiades, Posidippus, Hedylus, Callimachus, Antipater of Sidon, and Meleager. Readers who are convinced by her arguments in these opening chapters will be swept along by her hypothetical arrangements, which she supports with close readings of individual poems set in their new contexts. Others, myself included, will remain suspicious of the solidity of the foundations of this edifice, while still finding much to admire in her sophisticated interpretations of individual poems.Much of Gutzwiller's theoretical underpinning depends upon rather strict adherence to the orthodox view of what she characterizes as the "Callimachean aesthetic preference for the miniature, the intricate, and the fragmented" (4). The Hellenistic epigram books that she posits correspond neatly with Callimachean aesthetics so described. She rejects out of hand Cameron's arguments for the social role of epigram in a sympotic setting, in favor of the bookish background described by (e.g.) Peter Bing. The hypothesis of a neat and well– ordered world of Hellenistic poetry books, as outlined by some modern scholars, is not undisputed, but readers will not hear much about that here. Gutzwiller sweeps aside skeptical challenges to this picture, and the possibility, for example, that Callimachus produced a collected edition of his poetry, advanced only as a hypothesis by Rudolf Pfeiffer, is here (19) represented as "the probability... that Callimachus published his complete oeuvre, ordered and divided into books." Her summary of the papyrus evidence paints a far more stable picture of the situation of books in the manuscript culture of the Hellenistic world than the evidence safely allows. For Gutzwiller, any references to the of a poet "indicate an authorially compiled epigram book" (20). This naïve extension of Pfeiffer's theory of the composition of a "Collected Works" of Callimachus, and unswerving allegiance to the communis opinio of Callimachean aesthetics, are recurring themes in Gutzwiller's reconstructions of ancient epigram books. Having settled upon the essential aesthetic that determines the [End Page 629] configuration of the book, it remains only to attach the surviving poems to this framework. Not surprisingly, the reconstructed books then offer further confirmation of the underlying assumptions. On this shaky foundation, for example, Gutzwiller... (shrink)

Was there a second legion in Palestine at all ? Mommsen has raised a doubt. In his note on C.I.L. iii 6641 ‘M. Iunio Maximo Leg. Augg. Leg. X Fr….’ he says ‘Quo tempore titulus positus est provinciam Palaestinam una sola legio obtinuerit necesse est X Fretensis; nam Augustorum vocabulum legatis legionis non solet addi nisi simul provinciae praesunt. Legio VI Ferrata quamquam a Dione in Iudaea collocatur, vide ne castra habuerit in Batanaea quae fuit sub legato Syriae Phoenices.’ On (...) C.I.L. iii 6703 similarly he says ‘legatus legionis Augusti vocabulum raro adsumit’ But the title ‘leg. Aug.’ does seem to be used with sufficient frequency of a simple ‘legatus legionis’ to invalidate Mommsen's argument: e.g. Dessau 1026 ‘leg. Aug. leg. xi C. p. f.’; 1036, 1055, 1070, 1141 etc: and the soldiers of Capitolias might just as easily have served across the border in Palestine. Zangemeister, who first published the inscription of Iunius Maximus {Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins x 1887, 49–53) took the same view as Mommsen, that he was the provincial legatus; but later he admitted that in that case the words ‘pro praetore’ would have been added. (shrink)

Health care professionals often face moral dilemmas. Not dealing constructively with moral dilemmas can cause moral distress and can negatively affect the quality of care. Little research has been documented with methodologies meant to support professionals in care for the homeless in dealing with their dilemmas. Moral case deliberation is a method for systematic reflection on moral dilemmas and is increasingly being used as ethics support for professionals in various health-care domains. This study deals with the question: What is the (...) contribution of MCD in helping professionals in an institution for care for the homeless to deal with their moral dilemmas? A mixed-methods responsive evaluation design was used to answer the research question. Five teams of professionals from a Dutch care institution for the homeless participated in MCD three times. Professionals in care for the homeless value MCD positively. They report that MCD helped them to identify the moral dilemma/question, and that they learned from other people’s perspectives while reflecting and deliberating on the values at stake in the dilemma or moral question. They became aware of the moral dimension of moral dilemmas, of related norms and values, of other perspectives, and learned to formulate a moral standpoint. Some experienced the influence of MCD in the way they dealt with moral dilemmas in daily practice. Half of the professionals expect MCD will influence the way they deal with moral dilemmas in the future. Most of them were in favour of further implementation of MCD in their organization. (shrink)

This article discusses the 2005 OUP biography of Michael Polanyi by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski S.J., Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher . The discussants are N. E. Wetherick, Brian G Gowenlock, and John Puddefoot; Martin X. Moleski, S. J. briefly responds, providing a previously unpulished letter from Polanyi to Reverend Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian mininster.

The concept of service found in Christian theism and related religious perspectives offers robust support for a political defense of nonhuman animal rights, both in the eschaton and in the present state. By adapting the political theory defended by Donaldson and Kymlicka to contemporary theological models of the afterlife and of human agency, I defend a picture of heaven as a harmoniously structured society where humans are the functional leaders of a multifaceted, interspecies citizenry. Consequently, orthodox religious believers (concerned with (...) promoting God’s will “on Earth as it is in Heaven”) have a duty to promote and protect the interests of nonhuman creatures in the present, premortem state. (shrink)

Some ways of defending inequality against the charge that it is unjust require premises that egalitarians find easy to dismiss—statements, for example, about the contrasting deserts and/or entitlements of unequally placed people. But a defense of inequality suggested by John Rawls and elaborated by Brian Barry has often proved irresistible even to people of egalitarian outlook. The persuasive power of this defense of inequality has helped to drive authentic egalitarianism, of an old-fashioned, uncompromising kind, out of contemporary political philosophy. The (...) present essay is part of an attempt to bring it back in. (shrink)

In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, peopleâes material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawlsâes theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not only for the state (...) but also for people in their daily lives. The right rules for the macro scale of public institutions and policies also apply, with suitable adjustments, to the micro level of individual decision-making. Cohen also charges Rawlsâes constructivism with systematically conflating the concept of justice with other concepts. Within the Rawlsian architectonic, justice is not distinguished either from other values or from optimal rules of social regulation. The elimination of those conflations brings justice closer to equality. (shrink)

This paper examines an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant as the pressures of a warming planet, changing climate and changing ecosystems ramp up. The broad context for the paper is the intragenerational, intergenerational, and interspecies equity implications of changing the climate and the value orientations of adapting to such change. In addition, the need to stabilize the planetary climate by urgent mitigation of change factors is a foundational ethical assumption. In order to avoid further animal and plant extinctions, or (...) at the very least, their increased vulnerability to becoming rare and endangered; the systematic assisted colonization of “at risk” species is being seriously considered by scientists and managers of biodiversity. The more practical aspects of assisted colonization have been covered in the conservation biology literature; however, the ethical implications of such actions have not been extensively examined. Our discussion of the value issues, using a novel case study approach, will rectify the limited ethical analysis of the issue of assisted colonization of species in the face of climate change pressures. Beyond sustainability ethics, both animal and environmental ethical approaches will be used and intrinsic versus instrumental value orientations in the literature shall form the basis of our discussion. After the application of all the ethical approaches to the case studies, we conclude that without mitigation and the prospect of a future stable climate, assisted colonization will be involved in an inherently unethical process and a “move and lose it” outcome. With mitigation, there is wide-ranging ethical support for assisted colonization. (shrink)

Материалы конференции предназначены для специалистов.

1. The present paper is a continuation of my “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality,” which began with a description of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick. I contended in that essay that the foundational claim of Nozick's philosophy is the thesis of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does not deploy them aggressively against (...) others. To be sure, he may not harm others, and he may, if necessary, be forced not to harm them, but he should never be forced to help them, as people are in fact forced to help others, according to Nozick, by redistributive taxation. (shrink)

The major portion of this important work is the "Summary of the Republic." Coordinated with Grube’s translation, it proceeds book by book, first summarizing a chunk of text anywhere from a couple of Stephanus sections to several pages, then commenting in lettered notes of from two lines to four and a half pages. More technical material, aimed at advanced students and scholars, appears occasionally in smaller type. There is a fine bibliography. The format is successful: the book is easy to (...) use and attractive in appearance. (shrink)