Der Band bearbeitet die Frage, mit Hilfe welcher sprachlicher Verfahren Wissen in zentralen Praxisfeldern des Alltags entsteht. Am Beispiel der Bereiche Medizin, Recht, Lehr/Lerninteraktionen und Massenmedien wird untersucht, was jeweils interaktiv als Wissen angezeigt wird bzw. was als Wissen gilt. Die Beitrge gliedern sich quer zu den Praxisfeldern in vier Abschnitte und bearbeiten jeweils eine der folgenden Leitfragen: Wie wird Wissen situativ eingebettet, wie wird es interaktiv hervorgebracht, wie wird Wissen institutionell zur Geltung gebracht und wie wird es medial verbreitet.

What's it all about? Why am I here? Is there a God? Why do bad things happen? What happens when we die? All the big questions - and some interesting answers - from Gay Byrne's popular TV show.

This paper attempts to account for the peculiarly ‘otherworldly’ character of much contemporary management critique. It does so rather circuitously by focusing upon elements of the work of a moral philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre's comments about the ‘character’ of the ‘manager’ have commanded considerable support within critical organizational and management studies and have been regularly cited by critical intellectuals, keen to unmask an ethical and emotional vacuum at the heart of contemporary management practice. In what follows, I attempt to show (...) that the prestige and status accorded to MacIntyre's critique of the manager within organizational and management studies is directly proportional to its abstraction from the institutional realities of managing. In particular, I focus upon the ways in which MacIntyre attempts to hold the character of the manager accountable to a particular ideal of the person, one that derives many of its characteristics from Christian theology. (shrink)

In each decade of the nuclear age, philosophers have provided critical reflections on the nature, use, and consequences of nuclear weapons. Frequently, these reflections have addressed the morality of producing, testing, deploying, and using nuclear weapons. Already, these philosophical reflections have passed through four phases and are now entering a fifth phase. The first phase stretches from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the above ground nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. From the initial use of atomic weapons in 1945 to (...) the testing of the hydrogen bomb in 1952, the United States held a virtual monopoly. (The Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon in 1949, and the United States progressed not only to the development of the hydrogen bomb, but also to a miniaturization of nuclear weapons that spawned even more tactical nuclear weapons than the eventual strategic arsenals of the superpowers.) During the 1950s and 1960s, the second phase shifts to a focus on the above ground testing of the hydrogen bomb, as well as the post war tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The third phase addresses increasing shifts during the 1970s and 1980s to counterforce weapons and nuclear war fighting strategies. The fourth phase responds to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and to the problems of nuclear proliferation and nuclear deterrence in the post Cold War world, culminating with a critique of the renewal of Star Wars in 2001 under the guise of ballistic missile defense. The first decade of the twenty first century ushers in not only the purported “war against terrorism” by the United States, but also a broader and deeper philosophical response to the interconnections among violence, terrorism, and war. (shrink)

In this paper we study computability of the solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries equation ut + uux + uxxx = 0. This is one of the open problems posted by Pour-El and Richards [25]. Based on Bourgain's new approach to the initial value problem for the KdV equation in the periodic case, we show that the periodic solution u of the KdV equation is computable if the initial data is computable.

This article examines the construction and implementation of the Sullivan Principles, a two-decade effort to use corporate codes of conduct to improve the behavior of multinational corporations in South Africa under apartheid. Without organized social movement pressure, corporations would not have agreed to adopt the code, and corporate compliance required sustained pressure from the anti-apartheid movement. The system's independent monitoring process was problematic, and managers' definitions of “good corporate citizenship” were more guided by monitors'emphases than by substantive concerns. Based on (...) the historic case, the article raises questions about the voluntaristic, stateless character of transnational corporate codes of conduct and questions whether such codes offer a viable strategy for improving working conditions. (shrink)

[1] The rise of modern paganism.--v. 2. The science of freedom.

Josif Hechter, die onder de naam Mihail Sebastian een bekende Roemeense schrijver en essayist werd, wilde zijn joodse achtergrond van zich afschudden en zich met hart en ziel aan de Roemeense cultuur wijden. Het altijd aanwezige, maar na 1925 steeds heviger wordende antisemitisme in zijn land maakte dit streven heel moeilijk. In zijn oorlogsdagboek, dat pas in de jaren tachtig gepubliceerd werd, is een schokkende getuigenis van de moordpartijen op joden, die door de Roemeense fascisten werden uitgevoerd.

This article examines whether the concept of ‘professionalism’ as applied to the legal profession serves any useful guide as to how lawyers should act. Professionalism is defined in terms of civility for the purposes of this article and considered against the backdrop of a perceived ‘decline’ in professionalism in the legal profession. Arguably, professionalism is all too often subsumed under the heading of ethics in both common parlance and in course content in law schools where Ethics, Professional Responsibility are part (...) of the curriculum with little weight given to professionalism per se. This article reflects, in part, on the student perception as to the state of the profession garnered from their responses to an assessment task at an Australian university. The issue is ripe for further discussion given that in Australia, the Law Admissions Consultative Committee has queried whether the teaching of Ethics should be withdrawn from the core curriculum. The article queries if there is in fact a ‘decline’ in standards and civility and, if so, considers the potential to arrest this ‘decline’ by the profession, universities and students working together to revive ‘professionalism’. (shrink)

_A renowned scholar’s reflections on the romantic period, its disparate participants, and our unacknowledged debt to them_ With his usual wit and élan, esteemed historian Peter Gay enters the contentious, long-standing debates over the romantic period. Here, in this concise and inviting volume, he reformulates the definition of romanticism and provides a fresh account of the immense achievements of romantic writers and artists in all media. Gay’s scope is wide, his insights sharp. He takes on the recurring questions about how (...) to interpret romantic figures and their works. Who qualifies to be a romantic? What ties together romantic figures who practice in different countries, employ different media, even live in different centuries? How is modernism indebted to romanticism, if at all? Guiding readers through the history of the romantic movement across Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, Gay argues that the best way to conceptualize romanticism is to accept its complicated nature and acknowledge that there is no “single basket” to contain it. Gay conceives of romantics in “families,” whose individual members share fundamental values but retain unique qualities. He concludes by demonstrating that romanticism extends well into the twentieth century, where its deep and lasting impact may be measured in the work of writers such as T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. (shrink)

An essential aspect of forming representations of social groups is to recognize socially relevant attributes licensed by the group membership. Because knowledge of cultural practices tends to be transmitted through social contact within social groups, it is one of the fundamental attributes shared among members of a social group. Two experiments explored whether 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds selectively attribute shared cultural knowledge on the basis of group membership of agents. Using novel social groups, children were introduced to one target agent and (...) two other agents, one of which belonged to the same group as the target and one belonged to a different group. Children were then asked who would know or like same things as the target agent. The results showed that children expect group members to know the same songs, whereas they do not necessarily expect them to like the same songs or know the same generic facts. These findings suggest that children are remarkably selective in the attributions they make based on social group membership and from early on, they expect social group membership and cultural knowledge to be closely linked. (shrink)

Originally published in 1904, this book examines the connection between two of Plato's most famous theories, the Theory of Ideas and the Theory of the Immortality of the Soul, and assesses the development of Plato's thinking concerning the nature of the soul and its connection to the body. Gaye looks at pre-Platonic views on immortality and the place of immortality in Plato's overall philosophical structure. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Platonic philosophy.

The tendency for abstract theorists of democratization to overlook gender dynamics is perhaps exacerbated in the South African case, where racial inequality is obviously key. Yet, attention to the processes through which South African activists inserted gender issues into discussions about how to construct new institutions provides an unusual prism through which to explore the gendered character of citizenship. After providing an explanation for the unusual prominence of gender concerns in South Africa's democratization, the article argues that during the drawn-out (...) democratic transition, South African activists, often influenced by international feminist discussions, developed a collective definition of gender interests and began to build those interests into the structure of democratic institutions, in ways that will affect politics and the definition of “women's interests” in the future. (shrink)

A workshop sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989 brought together more than two dozen scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore Confucian ethics as a common intellectual discourse in East Asia. The participants included specialists on the societies of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well as scholars who specialize in comparative studies. In nine intensive sessions, they probed the ways in which the Confucian ethic has shaped perceptions of selfhood, (...) dynamics of familial relations, gender construction, social organization, political authority, popular beliefs, and economic culture in East Asia. This book is a distillation of the essence of their multidisciplinary and cross-cultural examination of these issues. It seeks especially to illuminate claims that Confucian ethics have provided the necessary background and a powerful motivation in the rise of industrial East Asia, the most dynamic region of sustained economic growth and political development since World War II. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1966.

The Cold War has ended and the post-Cold War world is often presented as one in which democracy and market economies are victorious. Francis Fukuyama goes so far as to claim that democratic politics has triumphed on a global scale.[ii] At least from a statistical point of view, most nations now declare themselves to be democracies, and a majority of the global population lives in these countries.[iii] However, the claim that the West won the Cold War too easily occludes recognition (...) that the victory of democracy is restricted to the political sphere. While the dissolution of the Soviet Union has made the world “safe for democracy” in the political sphere, it has also made the world “safe for capitalism” in the economic sphere. In other words, the victory of democracy is partial since market economies remain largely undemocratic. (shrink)

This essay, written in memory of Erik Olin Wright, explores Wright’s shift from a decades-long effort to map class structures in industrial societies to a search for paths to a more egalitarian future, pointing to the key role of feminist theory in that shift.

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” So begins Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. While he was writing about London and Paris during the turbulent times associated with the rise of the British Industrial Revolution and the French Political Revolution, these lines express the current sentiments of many Americans. Before 11 September 2001, many people thought we were living in the best of times. Baby boomers were relishing in the prospects that through inheritance (...) they would be the beneficiaries of the greatest transfer of wealth in United States history. After 11 September, even more citizens were psychologically shattered when they realized that the terrorist strikes showed that the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth, is still quite vulnerable. (shrink)

[1] The rise of modern paganism.--v. 2. The science of freedom.

University of Minnesota Pamphlets on American Writers ; No. 88.

This book examines the changes and challenges to democracy particularly in contemporary Russia. In the first section, Russian and American philosophers scrutinize the virtues and vices facing a country changing to a democratic government. The book, secondly, explores the challenges facing a democratic Russia. Lastly, the book considers carefully issues of social justice arising from the relationship between democracy and the current economic climate of globalization. The series Contemporary Russian Philosophy explores a variety of perspectives in and on philosophy as (...) it is currently being practiced in Russia. Co-sponsored by the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and by the Russian Philosophical Society, this special series features collaborative works between Russians and Americans, collections of essays by Russians, and monographs by Russians. All volumes are published in English. (shrink)