This highly acclaimed volume brings together some of the world's foremost historians of ideas to consider Machiavelli's political thought in the larger context of the European republican tradition, and the image of Machiavelli held by other republicans. An international team of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (notably law, philosophy, history and the history of political thought) explore both the immediate Florentine context in which Machiavelli wrote, and the republican legacy to which he contributed.

The doctrines of the Hellenistic Schools - Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics - are known to have had a formative influence on later thought, but because the primary sources are lost, they have to be reconstructed from later reports. This important collection of essays by one of the foremost interpreters of Hellenistic philosophy focuses on key questions in epistemology and ethics debated by Greek and Roman philosophers of the Hellenistic period. There is currently a new awareness of the great interest and (...) influence of Hellenistic philosophy. In bringing together a major collection of scholarly and interpretative studies by a leading figure in the field, this volume is a boon to philosophers and classicists who work on the Hellenistic period, but also to students keen to enrich their understanding of the history of epistemology and ethics. (shrink)

Por metodologías activas entendemos aquellas propuestas didácticas que orbitan en torno al papel del alumnado como generador de conocimiento y que construye su aprendizaje en base a la interacción con el grupo. Este planteamiento constituye la razón de ser de este trabajo donde Acción e Interacción se convierten en un grito enaltecido que llama al cambio desde la propia aula.

Self-reliance as an expected outcome of community empowerment can reduce the level of vulnerability and dependence of the community on assistance in the long term. As a form of its social responsibility, the company strives to create sustainable independence in the surrounding community through community empowerment activities. This research will illustrate the independence that occurs in the community on Gag Island through CSR programs implemented by the company. Independence is seen in the implementation of CSR programs. The research method used (...) was a descriptive research with a qualitative approach by involving local communities on Gag Island, Raja Ampat Regency, and Southwest Papua Province as the parties involved. The results showed that the community's activeness, consistency, determination, and trust indicate independence in implementing empowerment programs. In addition, the provision of knowledge, capacity building and community trust, and strengthening community participation based on integrity, consistency, loyalty, and openness, as well as collaboration with the merger of interests between the company itself and the stakeholders involved, are essential aspects in implementing CSR to create independence. However, this independence needs to be maintained and expanded properly and evenly so that CSR programs by the company can impact and benefit the community, not only for the people of Gag Island but also for those living on the surrounding islands. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to examine a conception of happiness that seems to have become popular after the time of Plato and Aristotle: tranquillity or, as one might also say, peace of mind. This conception is interesting for two reasons: first, because it seems to come from outside the tradition that began with Plato or Socrates, second, because it is the only conception of eudaimonia in Greek ethics that identifies happiness with a state of mind and makes it (...) depend entirely on a person’s attitude or beliefs. In this way it may be closer to more recent ideas about happiness, notably those of utilitarians who treat “happiness” as a synonym of “pleasure,” than to the classical Greek conceptions of the good life. For Plato and Aristotle the happy life certainly had to be pleasant or enjoyable, but they did not think that happiness itself consisted in being pleased with one’s life. As the Stoic Seneca puts it, “it is not that virtue is chosen because it pleases, but that, if chosen, it also pleases.” I will argue that tranquillity was in fact not a serious contender for the position of ultimate good in ancient times. Greek theories of happiness from Plato to Epicurus were attempts to spell out what sort of a life one would have to lead in order to have good reasons for feeling tranquil or contented; they were not recipes for reaching a certain state of mind. Looking at the case of tranquillity will show, I think, that modern philosophers interested in questions about the good life might be well advised to follow the lead of their ancient predecessors. (shrink)

Este artículo explora las diferentes significaciones del tiempo en la obra Nadie nada nunca de Juan José Saer y la singularidad de su escritura. Propone una aproximación interdisciplinar que articula elementos de crítica literaria y conceptos de la filosofía de Emmanuel Levinas a fin de elucidar los potenciales sentidos ontológico, estético y político del fenómeno temporal en la novela estudiada. El concepto levinasiano de diacronía es utilizado como figura hermenéutica esencial para comprender y caracterizar el estilo de escritura saeriana, que (...) da cuenta de la experiencia del presente que afecta a los personajes, y de la imagen del tiempo discontinuo implícita en la obra. Se retoma, entonces, desde una perspectiva fenomenológica, los conceptos de presente, instante, memoria y conciencia trabajados en los estudios literarios sobre la obra de Saer, para encontrar, más allá de una concepción ontológica de la materialidad del tiempo, un recurso estético que permite pensar la constitución del tiempo y de la subjetividad en el contexto de la dictadura militar en Argentina. (shrink)

This article demonstrates that theory-laden perception is a pure fiction of some philosophers of science and does not in fact exist. It shows by examples from L. Fleck that non-neutral or person-bound observation is an important source of scientific knowledge and suggests that we can explain those changes in scientific knowledge that are caused by divergent perceptions of different observers by means of differences in the repertoires of visual concepts of the respective observers. Visual concept is introduced by means of (...) a performance model of perception. It is contrasted with definable or language-generated concept and compared to Wittgenstein's family resemblance of concepts. (shrink)

This essay argues that ancient Pyrrhonists did not decide to suspend judgment, but rather claimed to have found themselves unable to arrive at any judgment. By giving up the attempt, they also claimed to have unexpectedly reached tranquility, then followed the customs of ordinary life without ever claiming to have found the truth. This anti-rational attitude is not likely to be typical of ordinary people, nor would it seem desirable to modern defenders of ordinary practices like Fogelin.

Public discourse on religious matters is a sensitive issue in Romania. It has raised heated debates for at least two reasons: on the one hand, the repressive policy of the Communist regime concerning religion created a strong boomerang-effect, a religious renaissance after 1989; on the other hand, there is a deep cleavage between the “two Romanias:” the urban and the rural, the modernized and the traditionalist, the liberal and the conservative. Religion still serves as a major cultural marker of national (...) identity, and the church is one of the most trusted institutions in Romania. We are exploring the hypothesis that the 2006-2007 religious icon scandal in Romania is a typical example of heated public debate in a transitional society. (shrink)

Scepticism has been one of the standard problems of epistemology in modern times. It takes various forms – the most general one being the thesis that knowledge is impossible; but equally prominent are such versions as the notorious doubt about the existence of an external world, inaugurated by Descartes'Meditations, or doubts about the existence of objective values. Philosophers who undertake to refute scepticism – still a very popular exercise – try to show that knowledge is possible after all, or to (...) prove the existence of an external world, and so on. Sceptics, generally speaking, are seen as radical doubters – philosophers who call into question assumptions that are usually taken for granted by ordinary people as well as by other philosophers. Those doubts have to be refuted by showing that they are in some way unjustified. (shrink)

During the IAEA’s Mobile Radioisotope Exhibition (1960–1965) through the eventful roads of five Latin American countries (Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia), a variety of photographs were taken by an unknown Mexican official photographer, and by Josef Obermayer, a staff driver from Vienna. The exhibition carried not only bits of nuclear sciences and technologies, but also the political symbolism of the ‘friendly atom’ as a token of modernization. The photographs embarked on different trajectories, though all of them ended up at (...) the training and exchange official’s desk in charge of the exhibition, Argentinian physicist Arturo Cairo. The ones taken in Mexico also had a local circulation as propaganda intended to promote radioisotope applications. The two sets of images were intended to show the contrast between modernity and traditional society, but they did it from different gazes. Our paper argues that, in the case of Mexico, the photographer reinforced representations of the country which were already popularized by Hollywood for foreign and local audiences. On the other hand, the Viennese photographer’s gaze delivers an autoethnography of his dutiful journey. We also argue that Obermayer’s projection is one of what Roger Bartra has conceptualized as the ‘salvage on the mirror’. (shrink)

En el presente artículo me ocupo de la discusión acerca de cuán exigentes son nuestras obligaciones de contribuir con dinero y tiempo a las agencias humanitarias que asisten a personas en situación de pobreza extrema en el mundo. Defiendo una posición intermedia, moderada, frente a la posición extrema formulada por Peter Singer y frente a la posición según la cual nuestras obligaciones son mínimas. La objeción principal contra esas dos posiciones es que, cuando analizan la situación en que los potenciales (...) donantes se encuentran frente a las personas en situación de pobreza extrema, omiten el carácter iterativo que es propio de esa situación. La posición moderada, en cambio, tiene en cuenta ese carácter, gracias a que entiende a nuestras obligaciones hacia los pobres globales como obligaciones imperfectas. In this article I engage in the debate about the demandingness of our duties to contribute with money and time to humanitarian agencies that assist people who live in extreme poverty around the world. I defend an intermediate, moderate, view against Peter Singer's extreme view, and also against the view according to which our duties are minimal. The main objection regarding those two views is that, when they analyze the situation in which potential donors are vis-à-vis people who live in extreme poverty, they miss its distinctive iterative character. The moderate view, on the contrary, pays heed to that character, thanks to its account of our duties towards the global poor as imperfect duties. (shrink)

Summary This article presents the person–environment analysis as a framework for participatory and holistic research. By using common methods of qualitative research and analysis, it is possible to capture the present situation of a person. The person–environment analysis is built on Kurt Lewin’s field theory and a further development of its system of visual representation of the life space. It is argued that the person–environment analysis offers a frame to represent the perceived subjective situation of a person, which can be (...) used in research, yet offers the possibility of counseling and intervention. (shrink)

Historically, as well as more recently, women's emancipation has been seen in two ways: sometimes as the `right to be equal' and sometimes as the `right to be different'. These views have often overlapped and interacted: in a variety of guises they have played an important role in both the development of ideas about women and feminism, and the works of political thinkers by no means primarily concerned with women's liberation. The chapters of this book deal primarily with the meaning (...) and use of these two concepts in the context of gender relations, but also draw attention to their place in the understanding and analysis of other human relationships. (shrink)

This volume draws together a selection of Gisela Striker's essays from the last forty years in the areas of research for which she is best known: Aristotle's logic and ethics, and Hellenistic epistemology and ethics.

The Prior Analytics marks the beginning of formal logic, and is one of the most influential works in the history of thought. It is here that Aristotle sets out his system of syllogistic reasoning. The first book, to which this volume is devoted, offers a coherent presentation of Aristotle's logic as a general theory of deductive argument.

So far little are the studies that have focussed on exploring school principals’ self-conception of their distributed leadership competencies in relation to their managerial and teaching experience. To do so, an exploratory research was carried out with a sample of 163 pre-service and in-service school principals studying a Master’s programme in School Management, Innovation and Leadership at a Spanish University. Data were obtained by using an Ad hoc questionnaire of 7 units of competence and 5 proficiency levels for each unit, (...) based on an existing rubric to analyse students’ self-conception of their development of leadership competencies. The findings of this preliminary study show statistically significant differences in the self-perception in all dimensions associated to Managerial Experience and Teaching Experience in schools. Study participants with ME showed statistically higher levels than those who had non-ME in four of seven dimensions: lead the school organisation, address the needs of the students, manage the organisation of the school organisation, and manage administrative work. Similar results were obtained in relation to TE versus non-TE were statistically significant differences are found in six dimensions: manage pedagogical and didactic resources, attend to the needs of students, manage didactic strategies, manage the organisation of the school organisation, manage the link between the school organisation and the community, and lead the school organisation. This study shows the importance of teaching and professional experience to acquire leadership competencies in education, therefore the school principal should also be a teacher. This preliminary study provides insights into the relevance of providing pre-service or in-service school principals with training and professional development programmes on sustainability distributed leadership that enable them to genuinely engage the school community, develop innovative pedagogies and lead the process of change toward building more sustainable schools. (shrink)

It was once thought that solely humans were capable of complex cognition but research has produced substantial evidence to the contrary. Art and music, however, are largely seen as unique to humans and the evidence seems to be overwhelming, or is it? Art indicates the creation of something novel, not naturallyoccurring in the environment. To prove its presence or absence in animals is difficult. Moreover, connections between music and language at a neuroscientific as well as a behavioural level are not (...) fully explored to date. Even more problematic is the notion of an aesthetic sense. Music, so it is said, can be mimetic, whereas birdsong is not commonly thought of as being mimetic but as either imitation or mimicry and, in the latter case, as a ‘mindless’ act (parrots parroting). This paper will present a number of examples in which animals show signs of responsiveness to music and even engage in musical activity and this will be discussed from an ethological perspective. A growing body of research now reports that auditory memory and auditory mechanisms in animals are not as simplistic as once thought and evidence suggests, in some cases, the presence of musical abilities in animals. (shrink)