The notion that manual gestures played an important role in the evolution of human language was strengthened by the discovery of mirror neurons in monkey area F5, the proposed homologue of human Broca's area. This idea is central to the thesis developed by Arbib, and lending further support to a link between motor resonance mechanisms and language/communication development is the case of autism and congenital blindness. We provide an account of how these conditions may relate to the aforementioned theory.

Should a debate of the choice between metaphorical investigation and epistemological realism in organizational research be prioritized as Willy McCourt called for in Organization Studies? We argue here against doing any such thing — a ‘realism’ debate in organizational theory would merely be a ‘red herring’. Theoretical investigation from Ricoeur to Derrida has liberated us from the need to re-visit the theme, but examination of Gareth Morgan's intellectual development, as begun by McCourt, is of interest because it reveals two very (...) different ‘realisms’. What is of interest about ‘realism’ is not an eitherlor of either ‘realism’ or ‘constructivism’, but a polyphony of the many voices of research. (shrink)

A theoretical divide exists on the study of the adapted psychological mechanisms underlying human culture. It has been said for instance that we evolved a brain for all seasons and that this is opposed to the framework of the modularity of mind. We approach the nature of these explanatory differences based on what we judge to be a misunderstanding with respect to the evolution of domain-specific modules. We underline the fact that the input-domain of a module and its ecological function (...) should not be conflated. We propose a more generous way of considering how evolutionary functions in mental architecture account for the possibility of general adaptations for cultural cognition. We show that modularity happens to be a good tool to research and decompose mechanisms with plastic functions such as in some forms of social learning. The idea of "modules for all seasons" is so vindicated. Existe una divisoria teórica en el estudio de los mecanismos psicológicos biológicamente adaptados que subyacen a la cultura humana. Se ha dicho, por un lado, que hemos evolucionado un cerebro para todas las estaciones, lo que se opone, por el otro, al marco de la modularidad de la mente. Consideramos la naturaleza de estas diferencias explicativas sobre la base de lo que nos parece un error de comprensión acerca de la evolución de módulos específicos de dominio. Subrayamos el hecho de que el dominio de entrada de un módulo y su función ecológica no deben ser confundidos. Proponemos una manera más generosa de considerar cómo las funciones evolutivas de la arquitectura mental pueden dar cuenta de la posibilidad de adaptaciones generales a la cognición cultural. Mostramos que la modularidad resulta ser un buen instrumento para investigar y descomponer mecanismos con funciones plásticas, como las que encontramos en algunas formas de aprendizaje social. De este modo, se defiende la idea de "módulos para todas las estaciones". (shrink)

Background The learning process about dignity and how undergraduate nursing students experience and use this ethical knowledge is an under-represented field in nursing research. To overcome the lack of conceptual clarity, it is important to understand what processes and dimensions students develop to support this learning outcome. Objective This study aimed to explain the process of learning about dignity by undergraduate nursing students. Research design and methods A qualitative study was conducted using the grounded theory method. Participants and research context (...) Data was collected through free reports and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 participants. A focus group was held for the selective coding. Sampling began purposefully and evolved into theoretical. Reflective and theoretical memos were generated from the data collection and constant comparison. Data analysis was performed using qualitative data analysis software using Corbin and Strauss’ method. Ethical considerations The research was approved by a specialized research ethics committee from a Health School. Findings The process of learning about dignity by undergraduate nursing students revealed ‘recognition of dignity’ as the core category, supported by five main categories: ‘proto-conscience of dignity’, ‘pathway to nursing’, ‘consciousness of dignity’, ‘ways of learning’, and ‘becoming capable’. These categories illustrate the processes and dimensions involved in nursing students’ concept translation of dignity learning, allowing a theory to emerge. Conclusions The ‘Recognition of Dignity’ theory aims to contribute to developing educational, training, and supervision processes for nursing programs. It seeks to enhance the ethical and moral development of undergraduate nursing students by helping them understand the concept of dignity and its fundamental importance in nursing. (shrink)

Theorising Education shows basic theoretical moves for the educational imagination by stripping each move down to its most elementary function. The author opens out five basic theoretical moves - each one able to be used with the others, so that, by the end of the book, you will have the beginnings of a theoretical tool kit. This tool kit will enable you to imagine possible educational worlds different from ones you may have already encountered. A first of its kind, Theorising (...) Education is for the person who wants to learn how to think about education in an active, imaginative and systematic way."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics Reconsidered: Theory and Method in a Post-Christian, Post-Modern AgeH. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. (bio)A candid assessment of the moral significance of our post-Christian, post-modern era calls for a reconsideration of the very project of bioethics. For many bioethicists, concerns for theory and method are secondary. 1 These scholars presuppose a common morality and a reasonable, overlapping consensus regarding [End Page 336] an appropriate polity. They assume as well that (...) we, as humans, possess middle-level principles, casuistic capacities, and guiding intuitions that enable us, inter alia, to identify which allocations of health care are unfair, whether the purchase of organs from the poor is exploitative, and if physicians may require as a condition for treatment agreement on a professional standard for the disclosure of information in the acquisition of consent. In this account of bioethics, we are taken to share a content-full moral understanding. Theory may illuminate that understanding and method may resolve particular controversies, but neither is necessary to disclose the nature of the moral life in the domain of health care. The account presents us as bound by a content-full morality, about which we have pretheoretical knowledge and in terms of which we are able to reach appropriate decisions, even if we have competing theoretical understandings of that morality.This dominant account of bioethics has interesting similarities with Roman Catholic moral theology in assuming (1) the existence of a common canonical morality grounded in our nature, our sentiments, and/or our reason, as well as (2) the ability of reason, reflection, or analysis to disclose the substance of that morality. The difficulty is that there are diverse moral sentiments, sympathies, and visions. The depth of our disagreements can be gauged in our substantive disputes regarding abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and health care reform. Furthermore, no appeal to middle-level principles or to casuistry can bridge such differences when people really disagree. Such appeals only underscore what separates.Consider how an appeal to the principle of autonomy or justice in mediating disputes regarding the licensing of for-profit euthanatization services or the enactment of a health care proposal like that produced by the Clinton administration in 1993 (White House 1993) will only disclose how deep the disagreements are, if the disputants are a Rawlsian and a Nozickian (Rawls 1971, Nozick 1974). Or, consider an appeal to casuistry for the resolution of health care policy debates among parties, some of whom consider dumping and skimming to be morally exemplar acts of autonomy, frankness, and appropriate stewardship of resources (Engelhardt and Rie 1988), while the other parties regard them as exemplar acts of injustice. Such disputants will agree neither about the proper descriptions of the cases, nor about how to derive moral guidance from them, because they bring to the cases disparate moral senses and different understandings of moral rationality. In a world in which there are as many different accounts of fairness and justice as there are major religions, and where many may hold that exploiters are those who do not allow the poor to sell their organs to the rich, the presumption of a moral consensus or background morality (Bayertz 1994) serves more as an ideology than as a general authoritative moral disclosure. [End Page 337]In addition, it is not possible to choose among many 2 of the competing visions or accounts of justice, fairness, and appropriate behavior on the basis of sound rational argument. To choose authoritatively among competing content-full moralities or moral accounts, one must already have background moral guidance. If one is to choose the account that maximizes benefits over harms, one must be able to compare competing benefits. For example, in terms of consequences, one cannot compare liberty and equality outcomes without already knowing how to rank liberty and equality. One must already know the answer about which morality—e.g., the one that gives priority to liberty over equality, or the one that gives priority to equality over liberty—is authoritative. Nor will an appeal to preference satisfaction solve the difficulty of determining how to establish the canonical ethics and bioethics. One must first know how one should correct preferences, compare impassioned versus considered... (shrink)

En el texto se hace hincapié en los tenebrosos elementos sacrificiales que le ha acarreado al movimiento estudiantil perteneciente a la combativa Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa, situada en el Estado mexicano de Guerrero, dominado por el narcotráfico y un gobierno municipal que actúa en complicidad con este último. Se trata de un establecimiento que, además de formar maestros populares, se halla enrolado en las luchas sociales y políticas. A fines de 2014 fueron reprimidos brutalmente y objeto de desaparición forzosa (...) unos 43 alumnos de esa Escuela, lo cual dio lugar a una ininterrumpida protesta civil con muy diversos ribetes internos y mundiales cuyas múltiples expresiones procuran explicitarse en el trabajo. Por otra parte, se incursiona en el trasfondo ideológico que viene acompañando el devenir institucional mexicano bajo el manto del neoliberalismo -al cual el autor ha optado por reconceptuar como neuroliberalismo en distintos ensayos suyos y en colaboración. Conjuntamente, se enfoca la problemática en cuestión desde un ángulo doctrinario y existencial específico: el del necropoder y el pensamiento crítico. Entre los referentes bibliográficos principales pueden citarse desde Foucault y Mbembe a Holloway y González Casanova. The paper deals with the engagement of mexican student movement in Ayotzinapa Rural College and the repressive way that the local goverment and the narco-maffia fought against those students, with the disappearance and destruction of their bodies and cadavers, around september 2014. The case has an enormous influence in world and local public opinion, with different movilizations and artistic expressions that have a very critical reading of Mexican treatment in the field of Human Rights. Mexican and international neoliberalism, as well as bio and necropolitics, has been specially analyzed with the auxiliary tool of critical thinking. Between the theoretical authors that are close involved in these approaches, we can find Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, John Holloway and Pablo González Casanova. (shrink)

In the following sections we hold that physical continuity suffices personal persistence through time. First, we determine the theoretic and conceptual grounds of the metaphysical problem of personal identity, the relevant notion of «personal identity», the temporal persistence question simpliciter, what identity criteria and individuation principles are, and the formal properties of the identity concept. We differentiate between the simple and complex views, stating the reductionist thesis transversal to the latter. In the central sections, we discuss the main arguments and (...) objections endorsed to the dominant identity criteria, namely, the lockean memory criterion, causal dependence criteria of psychological connectivity and continuity, the corporeal or physical criterion, the somatic view and the cerebral criterion. Psychological criteria are not considered promising. We hold the hypothesis that personal identity consists in a causal relation of brute physical continuity. For such, we refine the original corporeal criterion, showing that the defense of, at least, minimal physicalism about mind-brain identity ensure its reinforcement. (shrink)

This paper undertakes a theoretical investigation of the 'learning' aspect of science as opposed to the 'knowledge' aspect. The practical background of the paper is in agricultural systems research – an area of science that can be characterised as 'systemic' because it is involved in the development of its own subject area, agriculture. And the practical purpose of the theoretical investigation is to contribute to a more adequate understanding of science in such areas, which can form a basis for developing (...) and evaluating systemic research methods, and for determining appropriate criteria of scientific quality. Two main perspectives on science as a learning process are explored: research as the learning process of a cognitive system, and science as a social, communicational system. A simple model of a cognitive system is suggested, which integrates both semiotic and cybernetic aspects, as well as a model of self-reflective learning in research, which entails moving from an inside 'actor' stance to an outside 'observer' stance, and back. This leads to a view of scientific knowledge as inherently contextual and to the suggestion of reflexive objectivity and relevance as two related key criteria of good science. (shrink)

This is the first book to examine individual rights from an economic perspective, collecting together leading articles in this emerging area of interest and showing the vibrant and expanding scholarship that relates them. Areas covered include The implications of constitutional protections of individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press, The right to bear arms, The right against unreasonable searches, The right against self-incrimination, The right to trial by jury, The right against cruel and unusual punishment, (...) including capital punishment. The focus of these papers is both theoretical and empirical, examining how economics can illuminate the entire sequence of crime and punishment, from the decision to commit a crime, to police methods for apprehending and arresting criminals, to the rules used in trials to the scope of punishment for the convicted. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss technique as utopia and ideology based on Bacon’s New Atlantis. First, it will be necessary to establish the meaning of utopia and ideology. The philosophical thought of Paul Ricoeur is the theoretical basis. On the one hand, Utopia is characterized by a critique of establishment and proposes other ways of exercising power. On the other hand, ideology intends to maintain a status quo. Thus, it will be possible to analyze Bacon's New Atlantis, regarding on it (...) the technique as utopia and how it becomes ideology when it assumes a role on power and authority legitimation. Considering the trends that try to replace politics and ethics by technique, like transhumanism, this paper concludes that it is necessary to strengthen horizontal power to ensure that technology does not become an instrument of oppression. (shrink)

The practice-dependence approach offers a new way of theorizing about human rights and distributive justice that promises to settle some of the ongoing disputes about their justification, content, and scope. In sharp contrast with naturalistic theories, which conceive of human rights as an abstract moral ideal, practice-dependence theories regard human rights as a public political doctrine constructed to play a specific regulatory role in contemporary world politics. They maintain accordingly that the content of those rights should be determined in light (...) of the role played by human rights in the contemporary practice of international politics. Similarly, those theories do not conceive of distributive justice simply as a moral virtue proper to all human beings, but rather as a political value arising as necessary to the regulation of certain social and political practices. In this view, the content and scope of justice should depend on an interpretation of the structure and point of the practices in question. The articles gathered in this volume propose a comprehensive introduction to the practice-dependence approach by some of its major supporters, as well as a critical discussion of its theoretical promises. (shrink)

In “The Political Dilemmas of Mexico’s Transformations: A Philosophical Approach”, Virginia Aspe explores the character of political transformations in Mexico addressing the following questions: a) What does the notion “political transformation of Mexico” entail? b) What are the philosophical arguments behind the three political transformations that Mexico has experienced since the 19th century? c) What are the political arguments with which the so-called “fourth political transformation” of Mexico is being promoted? Our article offers a series of arguments to begin a (...) conversation on some of the most salient contentions of professor Aspe regarding the phenomenon of political transformation lato sensu and the political transformations that Mexico has undergone, asking ourselves, specifically, if the rise of Obradorism to power can really be incorporated into that theoretical field with which Mexcan political history has been articulated. (shrink)

Joe L. Kincheloe (1950-2008) was one of North America's leading critical pedagogy scholars. He defined post-formalist thought in terms of deconstruction, affectivity, and non-linearity. His deconstruction focused on the context of ideas, ideologies, and teaching. It was a form of sociological deconstruction, and as such, inspired by Derrida, but different from him as well. In effect, Kincheloe was trying to marry Derrida to Foucault by making deconstruction see power in thought, relationships, and the world. Kincheloe's 'turn to affect' was inspired (...) by feminism and radical pedagogy. It was 'affect' focused on (in)justice and the social practices of repression. His 'self-other' construct was inherently politicized by his identification of 'unfreedom' with capitalism and the assumption that this link determines affect. Kincheloe assumed that linear rationality was inadequate to understanding human needs and hopes. Freedom as dynamism was seen to be inherently non-linear. The prison of rationality (it can only repeat the same, over and over again) was the crux of his critique of Newtonian-Cartesian linearity. Kincheloe attempted to construct a concept of 'place'--such as the classroom. But it was a particular, concrete classroom and not an abstract or theoretical one. Here, the three concepts could come together. 'Place' is context, and to understand it, deconstruction is needed. 'Place' exists as it is felt and requires affectivity; it is eventful, alive, and dynamic. It requires non-linearity to be understood. Post-formalism, Pedagogy Lives (in memory of Kincheloe's contribution) encompasses each of the basic principles of Kincheloe's post-formal thought. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to carry out a comparative analysis of the short stories The Idiots, by Joseph Conrad, and La gallina degollada, by Horacio Quiroga, whereby we introduce the term conjunction; in this case, the conjunction of horror. To this end, we refer to the key actions that are common to the two stories. For reasons of transparency, we avoid the excess of theories regarding intertextual relations, although we allude to one key theoretical concept for this study: the (...) parody, proposed by Bakhtin. Our purpose, however, is to emphasize our own conceptual proposal: that of the conjunction. It is our intention that the readers face themselves with the antecedent story which gives birth to the succeeding story, and reflect on the creative process, on the poetics itself. As the axis of articulation of this article, we highlight the influence of Conrad on Quiroga, and how both writers, in the above-mentioned stories, conceive the theme of horror based on the motif of the brothers who suffer physical and mental degradation, which trigger tragedies for the young couples. (shrink)

This is a history of modern linguistics which focuses on the spread and dominance of linguistic theory originating in North America. It concentrates on the theories and influence of Bloomfield and Chomsky, and offers systematic coverage of their enormous contributions to grammatical theory over their lifespan. As well as tracing the intellectual histories of these great figures, and of others in the field, Professor Matthews follows the development and continuity of three dominant grammatical ideas in linguistics. First, the idea that (...) the study of formal relations can and should be separated from that of meaning. Second, that sentences are composed of linear configurations of morphemes. Third, that many aspects of grammar are defined generically. His biographical and theoretical survey will be invaluable to all linguists wishing to trace the origins of their discipline. (shrink)

Can conscious awareness be ascertained from physiological responses alone? We evaluate a novel learning-based procedure permitting detection of conscious awareness without reliance on language comprehension or behavioural responses. The method exploits a situation whereby only consciously detected violations of an expectation alter skin conductance responses . Thirty participants listened to sequences of piano notes that, without their being told, predicted a pleasant fanfare or an aversive noise according to an abstract rule. Stimuli were presented without distraction , or while distracted (...) by a visual task to remove awareness of the rule . A test phase included occasional violations of the rule. Only participants attending the sounds reported awareness of violations and only they showed significantly greater SCR for noise occurring in violation, vs. accordance, with the rule. Our results establish theoretically significant dissociations between conscious and unconscious processing and furnish new opportunities for clinical assessment of residual consciousness in patient populations. (shrink)

Occupational Health Nursing (OHN) has followed a complex path to build and strengthen its theoretical basis. Starting with Public Health core principles, theories were shaped by the dualism of person worker and working environment, where sometimes the centre of the thought was given to the latter and other times to the former. The problem was not much on such conflict but on the definition of the correct OHN focus and whether genuine nursing knowledge was being applied. We are worried that (...) other disciplines radically influenced the theoretical path taken by OHN theorists. To approach this problem, a unitary‐transformative perspective can help us describe and analyse this phenomenon and engage scholars to reflect upon the accurate epistemological focus of OHN. We aimed to deepen this reflection and uncover a new OHN theoretical focus. (shrink)

SummaryIt is argued that Hugo de Vries's conversion to Mendelism did not agree with his previous theoretical framework. De Vries regarded the number of offspring expressing a certain character as a hereditary quality, intrinsic to the state of the pangene involved. His was a shortlived conversion since after the ‘rediscovery’ he failed to unify his older views with Mendelism. De Vries was never very much of a Mendelian. The usual stories of the Dutch ‘rediscovery’ need, therefore, a considerable reshaping.

The German synthesis of evolutionary theory that grew out of opposition to idealistic morphology has been anchored in the systematic work at the species level and below pursued by the Berlin School around Erwin Stresemann (involving Bernhard Rensch and Ernst Mayr), in the 1939 German translation of Dobzhansky’s Genetics and the Origin of Species, and in a 1943 anthology on evolution edited by Gerhard Heberer. The latter volume opened with a philosophical essay written by Hugo Dingler that was intended (...) to provide the theoretical foundation for the theory of descent. Dingler and Heberer not only shared a commitment to the Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection, but also drew from Darwinism the justification for racial hygiene and eugenics. Dingler’s “unequivocal-methodological system” is a meta-scientific construct that offers no ontological grounding of evolutionary theory. Dingler’s voluntarism is subjectivist and stipulative and for those reasons ineffective in a critique of idealistic morphology. Dingler claimed descent with modification as a historical fact, but dealt only marginally with evolutionary mechanisms, and did not touch on issues of phylogeny reconstruction. (shrink)

RESUMENEl presente trabajo trata de exponer el trasfondo (neo)kantiano de la filosofía del cine de Hugo Munsterberg. Nuestro autor, reputado psicólogo experimental y profesor de Harvard, elaboró en 1916 una obra que está considerada la primera manifestación sistemática de la filosofía del cine: The photoplay: a psychological study. Nos centraremos en este libro y lo pondremos en relación con otros textos de Munsterberg en los que su teoría estética aparece. Por otro lado, y sin perder de vista la intención (...) de rescatar los aspectos kantianos de su posición, intentaremos ofrecer un contexto teórico e intelectual de las motivaciones y temáticas de nuestro autor. PALABRAS CLAVEFILOSOFÍA DEL CINE; TEORÍA DEL CINE; MUNSTERBERG; KANTISMO; ESTÉTICA; COGNITIVISMOABSTRACTThis paper aims to explain the Kantian background of Hugo Munsterberg’s philosophy of film. Our author, who was a renowned experimental psychologist and professor at Harvard, in 1916 produced a work that is considered the first systematic manifestation of film theory: The photoplay: a psychological study. We will focus on this book but also we’ll relate it to other Munsterberg’s texts in which his aesthetic theory appears. On the other hand, we will try to offer a theoretical and intellectual context in order to contextualize all his motivations and themes. KEY WORDSPHILOSOPHY OF FILM; THEORY OF FILM; MUNSTERBERG; KANTIANISM; AESTHETICS; COGNITIVISM. (shrink)

Based on a theoretical approach to current problems of democracy, the amplification of the public citizen action sphere, and changes generated by the transitions in democratic systems, the Venezuelan political process is analyzed since the rise to power of Hugo Chávez in 1998. The Chavez pheno..

The purpose of this critical study is to examine the young Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s theory of form departing from the characterization that Kurt Breysig provides of his poetry as Treibhauskunst, that is, greenhouse art. It aims also to illustrate how Hofmannsthal finds in the theoretical developments of Gottfried Semper the most precise expression of his own concept of form. The main point of the paper is to show that, at the turn of the twentieth century, the metaphorization and the (...) figuration of the greenhouse derives from its architectural features both formal means and aesthetic attributes closely linked to moral values. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Social Autopoiesis?” by Hugo Urrestarazu. Upshot: Urrestarazu’s presentation of social autopoiesis is compromised because he fails to take into account that social systems are meaning-constituting systems. The paper briefly comments on Luhmann’s theory of autopoiesis in communication systems, but does not refer extensively to Luhmann’s work. The possibility to establish bridges is thus impaired.

The movement known as Deutsche Physik (German physics) evolved hand in hand with National Socialism. It represented a marginal but vocal group of German scientists and science scholars who profiled themselves as defenders of “Aryan” science and called for the elimination of the “Jewish spirit” that they saw as epitomized by Albert Einstein’s relativity theory and as dominating the natural sciences, even in Nazi Germany. This infamous movement is most associated with the Nobel laureate physicists Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, (...) who founded it and gave it its initial political impetus during the early years of the Third Reich. However, in its main and final phase, between 1937 and 1943, the movement was no longer led by Lenard and Stark but by the philosopher of science Hugo Dingler (1881–1954) and his Munich-based circle. Tracing the development of his career until 1937, this article examines how Dingler came to play this role both despite and because of the significant differences between his and the better known Lenard-Stark strand of Deutsche Physik. Special attention is paid to Dingler’s subversive use of theoretical principles—particularly his framing of his work as a radical search for certainty—to advance the movement’s antiscientific agenda. (shrink)

One of the lecture plates in the collection of the Museum of the University of Amsterdam, generally believed to be used by the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries, has aroused much discussion in relation to the question of whether or not de Vries knew Mendel's laws before he published his rediscovery of them in 1900. The plate suggests that de Vries observed Mendelian segregation ratios in 1895 and 1896 in the progeny of a cross of two varieties of Papaver (...) with different flower colour. According to his own account, it was through this cross that he first deduced the laws of Mendel in 1896. Some researchers have accepted the lecture plate as proof for this claim. My conclusion is that the plate was not made before 1900 but in 1904 for a lecture course in the USA and, as a consequence, that it is not a contemporary piece of evidence. A closer look at the descriptions of the depicted experiment in de Vries' publications revealed that its original goal was not to investigate segregation but to transfer a monstrosity. The segregation of the flower colour was a accidental event. No research notes of the experiment have survived, but a note on an experiment with Veronica, performed in the same successive years as the Papaver experiment and definitely intended to investigate the segregation of flower colour, shows that this experiment was interpreted in a theoretically conceived, more or less Mendelian way. Because of a sloppy performance, no firm conclusions could be drawn from the experiment, but de Vries clearly had the idea of Mendelian segregation in 1896. That he never brought it up before 1900 suggests that he could not establish the general validity of segregation rules, as is shown in the case of Veronica. The reading of Mendel's paper in 1900 immediately put an end to de Vries' doubts. He scrapped the failures and kept the successes, proudly presenting these to the public as proof for the laws of segregation and, at the same time, of the independence of his discovery. (shrink)

This article analyses the development of the subjective concept of rights amongst Jesuit missionaries in Brazil during the sixteenth century, in the context of their cultural encounters with the Tupi Indians, and the ensuing debates over the justification of the natives' voluntary slavery. Usually associated with Hugo Grotius' natural law theory, the subjective concept of rights was originally developed by Jesuit theologians in Portugal, and justificatory practices in the missionary enterprise overseas formed the context in which this concept became (...) current within the Society of Jesus. This article traces such a development in the missions in Brazil. (shrink)

Seckendorff's »Teutsche Reden« of 1691 and the outline of his ideas on natural law published with them are a uniquely eloquent testimony of German Baroque culture. Seckendorff was the only 17th century aristocratic practitioner of courtly and political life to publish a number of his speeches in book form during his own lifetime and to supplement them with a theoretical superstructure substantiating his practical convictions. The text is centrally concerned with the connection between civilization and language culture and the dependence (...) of public speaking on the nature of the state. Seckendorff's unfinished outline of natural law betokens the critical engagement with the rise of secular natural law by a genuinely significant theoretician on the essential issues posed by government and administration. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that Grotius views on customary law are compatible with the concept of a ‘Grotian Moment’. However, the idea of accelerated customary international law is developed by Van Vollenhoven, who interpreted Grotius in a questionable way. Whereas Grotius qualifies as a thinker in the tradition of natural law, Van Vollenhoven should be seen as an interactionist. This is especially visible in his publications on adat law, in which he visibly belongs to a romantic, Germanist, and (...) rather pluralist tradition of law. The idea of a Grotian Moment also fits better with this starting point than with natural law. For this reason, the ‘Grotian Moment’ should be renamed ‘Van Vollenhoven’s Moment’. It is argued that this legal theoretical position explains some of Van Vollenhoven’s rather peculiar interpretations of Grotius. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Syrien im 1.-7. Jahrhundert nach Christus. Edited by Dmitrij Bumazhnov and Hans Reinhard Seeliger. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum, vol. 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Pp. viii + 284. €64.