The article proposes the hypothesis that the letters known as direct witnesses to the work of the council of Nicea are indeed false: that is, they are letters written after the episcopate of Athanasius. The political-ecclesial situation of Alexandria in the years 373-378 appears to be that described in the two letters and the only one possible, in my opinion, that corresponds to their tone and content. For this reason, their contents should not be considered a valid source for our (...) knowledge of the themes discussed at the council. (shrink)

La thèse de l'article est que Constantin aurait invité les évêques à Nicée pour fêter son jubilé. L'arianisme ne pouvait en être la raison, car à la fin de 324 l'empereur le considérait une chose de peu d'importance, même si scandaleuse. En tant que Pontifex Maximus, il était aussi responsable pour établir le calendrier des fêtes de la nouvelle religion et était tenu de conserver les formules sacrées. Les chrétiens n'avaient pas réussi jusqu'alors à se mettre d'accord sur la date (...) de la Pâque; Constantin voulait donc la faire établir. Il semble en fait que lui seul désirait un symbole de foi signé par tous; jusqu'alors chaque église locale avait le sien propre. Pour établir la date de la Pâque, garantir la paix dans l'Eglise et produire un credo, Constantin envoya son conseiller ecclésiastique, Ossio di Cordova, en mission en Orient. Celui-ci échoua et le credo formulé à Antioche était si radicalement anti-arien qu'il devait paraître assez monarchien, vu qu'à Nicée il n'en fut pas question. A Nicée, donc, les évêques, avant de célébrer le jubilé, durent solutionner toutes ces questions. Le credo établi s'y est présenté comme un compromis assez artificiel entre les tendances antiochiennes et alexandrines. Comme tel malgré la signature de l'empereur, il ne fut accepté par aucune eglise locale. Celles-çi continuèrent pendant des décennies à formuler de nouveaux symboles, jusqu'à ce que Athanase d'Alexandrie commenca à oeuvrer po. (shrink)

What does socially responsible investing (SRI) accomplish for investors and for society? Proponents of SRI claim that the practiceyields competitive portfolio returns for investors, while at the same time achieving better outcomes for society at large. Skepticsview SRI as ineffective at best and ill-conceived marketing hype at worst. My objective in this paper is to apply mainstream finance research findings to the question of whether SRI may be expected to lead to superior social outcomes. I conclude that under the perfectmarkets (...) assumptions underlying most finance theory, SRI will not affect social outcomes. However, given well documented imperfections in equity markets, the claim that SRI “makes a difference” to society is a reasonable one that is consistent with current theoretical and empirical research in finance. (shrink)

Si l’histoire des idées exige de prendre en compte la relation entre les pensées et les actes, la philosophie, dès lors qu’elle porte ses recherches sur le domaine pratique, esquisse les mouvements d’une narration, et justifie pleinement cet usage des symboles, ou des métaphores. Les narrations permettraient une « présentation indirecte » des concepts pratiques, des connaissances, mais aussi des méconnaissances. Les narrations, reprises de civilisations en civilisations, produisent des objets transhistoriques qui permettent de comparer les époques, les principes civilisationnels, (...) sans séparer les acteurs historiques de leurs pensées, sans séparer les idées de leur contexte. (shrink)

Explicit and implicit values of polish grandmothers and their granddaughters The authors tried to determine if and to what extent maternal granddaughters share the explicit and implicit values of their grandmothers. 80 grandmothers-granddaughter dyads were surveyed using Schwartz' SVS and Mudyń's RN-02, an instrument assigned to identify "ontological orientations". The results indicate that: 1) grandmothers differ significantly from granddaughters in all ontological orientations, especially in Theoretical and Religious orientation, 2) they differ also in personal values, except for Universalism and Power, (...) 3) regression analysis revealed two decisive factors which determine convergence of ontological orientations and values in grandmother-granddaughter dyads, i.e. and level of education and attitudes toward religion. It may mean that these are the two important transmitters of world view as well as personal values. (shrink)

The volume collects classics of Marxist historiography of science, including a new translation of Boris Hessen's “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's ...

The neoclassical paradigm assumes that shareholders'' utility is solely a function of their wealth, and prescribes that management should act in a manner consistent with share price maximization. The stakeholder view also assumes that shareholders'' utility derives from wealth, but prescribes that managers must balance the shareholder wealth maximization objective against the rights of other constituencies. Thus, while neoclassicists and stakeholder theorists have different prescriptives for management behavior, their definitions of the shareholders'' interest are consistent — shareholders are self-interested economic (...) agents whose utility is best served by share price maximization. However, if shareholders are other-interested, and attack importance to ethical and moral values, then both the neoclassical and stakeholder view derive from invalid assumptions. In this paper, I present evidence that much shareholder behavior is ethically motivated. As a result, the basis for both the neoclassical and the stakeholder view are weakened. (shrink)

In the mid-1990s, global labour standards emerged as a new and important are of concern for socially responsible investors, especially with respect to investments in the "problematic" footwear, apparel, and toy industries. In this paper, I elucidate the primary areas of concern for investors and discuss a framework for evaluating firms'' labor standards performance. In addition, I argue that today''s sweatshop debates follow closely those of centuries ago, with the standard economic defense of low wage manufacturing on the one hand, (...) and the activists'' protests against poor conditions and wages on the other. An examination of this historical context reveals a promising middle ground in this ongoing debate. (shrink)

Hans Wagner (1917–2000), using the achievements of German transcendental philosophy, gives a transcendental argument for the idea of human dignity. He claims that to ground the validity of human thinking and all its products (e.g. culture), we must accept the validity of the idea of human dignity. The structure of my paper is as follows: First, I consider what it means to give a transcendental justification of something. I reconstruct the neo-Kantian’s understanding of transcendental method. Then I argue that Wagner’s (...) idea of human dignity as a foundation of every ethics and law is nothing other than a fruitful interpretation and continuation, perhaps only making explicit Kant’s main ethical ideas. To make this more clear I present the relation between Kant’s ethics and the material ethics of values and, following Wagner, I argue that grounding ethics on the idea of self-determination of human will does not necessarily lead to formalism in the form in which it was criticised by the representatives of the material ethics of values. Finally, I reconstruct Wagner’s argument for the claim that the idea of human dignity is a transcendental condition for the possibility of ethics and law in general. (shrink)

Historically, Ehrenfest’s theorem is the first one which shows that classical physics can emerge from quantum physics as a kind of approximation. We recall the theorem in its original form, and we highlight its generalizations to the relativistic Dirac particle and to a particle with spin and izospin. We argue that apparent classicality of the macroscopic world can probably be explained within the framework of standard quantum mechanics.

Technology Assessment is a new mode of knowledge: it attempts to grasp the impact of large bodies of techniques and processes on large bodies of people and social institutions. We are not yet quite clear what exactly we mean by "impact" which is at the heart of TA judgments. Therefore it is of great importance that we look deeper into the epistemological foundations of TA, and attempt to learn where lie its strengths and pitfalls, under what circumstances it can be (...) best practised, what kind of qualities of mind it requires. (shrink)

Author: Mamzer Henryk Title: TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS INTO THE CULTURAL STUDIES ONES AS THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE PROCESS OF WORLD’S HUMANIZATION (Przekształcanie się problemów filozoficznych w kulturoznawcze jako wyraz procesu humanizacji świata) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 263-278 Keywords: NOTION OF CULTURE, CULTURAL STUDIES, PROCESS OF WORLD’S HUMANIZATION Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:This text is inspired by main research problem undertaken by Jerzy Kmita in (...) his book Konieczne serio ironisty. O przekształcaniu się problemów filozoficznych w kulturoznawcze (Poznań 2007). The mentioned problem is related to this area of culture to which „The human being had invaded and thanks to this started to construct both the world and himself”. Beginning from this moment the way followed by humans equals the process of the world’s humanization. This is not a continuous process. Each epoch, each culture, has its own vision of own functioning and the way which surrounding world functions, the world in which the social actor participates and creates. The practice proves that usually ethnocentric human attitudes influence the way in which original assumptions are introduced into the life. Reaction to this fact is giving up practicing philosophical practices related with the notion of “absolute” and, as consequences, moving into the field of cultural studies. This process is the demonstration of the world’s humanization. The notion of culture is the superior one. In a way – a priori – of all types of human activities. The science and philosophy are produced by the culture as well, and they are shaped by the values and expectations present in given culture. Because of this cultural studies (knowledge on the culture) appears to be “broad meaning type of knowledge”, exceeding the borders of the philosophy. (shrink)