We agree with the general commitment of Kunneman’s contribution, but formulate some critical reservations about its elaboration. First, we discuss the use of the concept of complexity. On the basis of Morin’s idea of general complexity we argue that a paradigmatic interpretation leads to a more consistent argumentation strategy. We illustrate this referring to Kunneman’s use of the term ‘autopoiesis’ and Habermas’s concepts of ‘system and life world’. We call into question Kunneman’s position that meaningfulness in volunteering falls short politically. (...) To this end, we formulate a different view about the relationship between existential and political meaningfulness from a vision of citizenship as belonging to the core of being human. This also throws a different light on the importance of the civil society. (shrink)

Objectives Potentially life-shortening medical end-of-life practices ) remain subject to conceptual vagueness. This study evaluates how physicians label these practices by examining which of their own practices they label as euthanasia or sedation.Methods We conducted a large stratified random sample of death certificates from 2007 . The physicians named on the death certificate were approached by means of a postal questionnaire asking about ELDs made in each case and asked to choose the most appropriate label to describe the ELD. Response (...) rate was 58.4%.Results In the vast majority of practices labelled as euthanasia, the self-reported actions of the physicians corresponded with the definition in the Belgian euthanasia legislation; practices labelled as palliative or terminal sedation lack clear correspondence with definitions of sedation as presented in existing guidelines. In these cases, an explicit life-shortening intention by means of drug administration was present in 21.6%, life shortening was estimated at more than 24 h in 51% and an explicit patient request was absent in 79.7%.Discussion Our results suggest that, unlike euthanasia, the concept of palliative or terminal sedation covers a broad range of practices in the minds of physicians. This ambiguity can be a barrier to appropriate sedation practice and indicates a need for better knowledge of the practice of palliative sedation by physicians. (shrink)

The Spanish Civil War was one of the pivotal events of the 1930’s, the moment when fascism and socialism came into open conflict. First published in 1939, _The Spanish Tragedy_ recounts the experiences of Jef Last. Activist, poet and novelist, Last might have been the archetypal Republican volunteer but his experience left him even more disenchanted than most. Critical of Soviet Communism, a court martial loyal to Moscow tried to sentence him to death and he was forced to flee to (...) Scandinavia. (shrink)

If climate change represents a severe threat to humankind, why then is response to it characterized by inaction at all levels? The authors argue there are two complementary explanations for the lack of motivation. First, our moral judgment system appears to be unable to identify climate change as an important moral problem and there are pervasive doubts about the agency of individuals. This explanation, however, is incomplete: Individual emitters can effectively be held morally responsible for their luxury emissions. Second, doubts (...) about individual agency have become overly emphasized and fail to convincingly exonerate individuals from responsibility. This book extends the second explanation for the motivational gap, namely that the arguments for the lack of individual agency do in fact correspond to mechanisms of moral disengagement. The use of these mechanisms enables consumption elites to maintain their consumptive lifestyles without having to accept moral responsibility for their luxury emissions. (shrink)

Since 1984 when J. Lotman’s article “On semiosphere” was published, this concept has been moving from one terminological field to another. In the disciplinary terminological field of the Tartu–Moscow School semiotics of culture, ‘semiosphere’ is connected with terms ‘language — secondary modelling system — text — culture’. From interdisciplinary terminological fields, the associations either with biosphere and noosphere, or with logosphere, are more important. As a metadisciplinary concept, semiosphere belongs to the methodology of culture studies and is associated with the (...) concepts of holism and the part and the whole. In this context, semiosphere marks the complementarity of disciplines studying culture, the movement towards the creation of general culture studies and “understanding methodology”. On the background of the contemporary trends of science it has to be remembered that semiosphere is simultaneously an object- and a metaconcept. The dynamism of culture as a research object forces science to search for new description languages but the new description languages in turn influence the cultural dynamics as they offer new possibilities for self-description. Often, however, from a historical perspective, a new description language is nothing but a methodological translation. Thus also the term semiosphere joins together several concepts that are related to semiotics of culture and that have gained new relevance on the background of the culture’s developmental dynamics. The concept of semiosphere brings semiotics of culture again into contact with its history, as it also brings applicational cultural analysis into contact with the history of culture and with the newest phenomena in culture. These contacts determine the place of the semiotics of culture among the sciences studying culture. (shrink)

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the (...) latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the othervaluable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation. (shrink)

The Belgian steel industry falls apart into four groups. The Flemish industry consists mainly of a very modern steel plant Sidmar near the port of Ghent controlled by the industrial holding Arbed. The Walloon industry falls apart into three basins : Cockerill in Liège; the holy triangleof Charleroi, controlled by Frère-Bourgeois, Cobepa and Bruxelles-Lambert ; the independents.In the Walloon industry the successive processes of steel making are distributed over a great number of plants, most of the equipment is outdated, labour (...) relations are bad and so is management.The finances required to renew this ancient industry are so large that the holdings cannot do so without the aid of the Belgian Government and the European Communities.Beginning of 1977, Davignon, proposes to freeze the production and market shares of the member countries, and to increase the European steel price by EEC tariff measures, in this way protecting the low productivity concerns ; not in the least the walloon concerns. The European Communities promise financial help for restructuring.The implicit condition is comparative advantage of enterprises. In the Belgian context, this would mean that Sidmar would be extended and part of the Walloon industry closed down. The next move of the Brussels-Walloon concerns is, therefore, to corner Sidmar.During the course of 1977 and the first half of 1978 the Government negotiates with employers and unions a restructuring plan and general steel agreement, the «Plan Claes». The plan foresees in a lasting ceiling imposed on Sidmar; in a very large fiow of restructuring aid,mainly from public funds and the set-up of an intricate network of semi-governmental institutions.The Plan Claes is a purely political compromise. From the economic point of view, the plan wilt only speed up the definite emigration of traditional steel making processes towards the semi-industrialized countries. (shrink)

The article sets out to initiate a dialogue between two normative conceptions of democratic society, overwhelmingly depicted as irreconcilable by the partisans of each position: the political liberalism of John Rawls and the radical democracy of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The paper argues that both approaches share the same underlying ethos in envisioning society (called the “the ethos of contingency” in the paper) informing Laclau and Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy and hegemony, as well as Rawls's view of justice (...) as fairness conceived in terms of reciprocity with its accompanying idea of public reason and reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

During the past decades, our image ofHomo neanderthalensishas changed dramatically. Initially, Neanderthals were seen as primitive brutes. Increasingly, however, Neanderthals are regarded as basically human. New discoveries and technologies have led to an avalanche of data, and as a result of that it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint what the difference between modern humans and Neanderthals really is. And yet, the persistent quest for a minimal difference which separates them from us is still noticeable in Neanderthal research. Neanderthal discourse is (...) a vantage point from which the logic of ‘us’ versus ‘other’ is critically reconsidered. Studying contemporary academic literature and science autobiographies from an oblique perspective, focusing not on Neanderthals as objects, but on the dynamics of interaction between Neanderthal researchers and their finds, basic convictions at work in this type of research are retrieved. What is at issue is not the actual distinction between modern humans and Neanderthals, but rather the dualistic construction of human and nonhuman. Neanderthal understanding is affected by the desire to safeguard human uniqueness. The overall trend is to identify the human mark or spark, which defines us as favoured ‘winners’. The paradoxes emerging in contemporary Neanderthal discourse are symptomatic of the fact that a dualistic style of thinking is no longer tenable. (shrink)

This article starts from the observation of current changes in the nature of a globalizing public sphere for which older structural boundaries have lost much of their relevance. Though the public sphere has traditionally been a topic for social scientists, a redefinition in terms of the realm of publicly accessible meaning, and of struggles over socially and politically important meaning, necessitates a contribution from the humanities. In particular, linguistic pragmatics, providing tools for an analysis of the way in which explicit (...) and implicit forms of meaning interact in the process of generating meanings, is argued to be a useful instrument. The argument is supported with an analysis of the differences in meaning landscapes that emerge even in different-­language versions of the ‘same’ text, illustrating how dependent publicly available meaning is on basic pragmatic processes. The article concludes that a maturing science of language use is therefore needed to understand variations in the accounts of social and political reality that people in a globalizing public sphere live by. (shrink)

L’ouvrage qu’on va lire se veut être une fondation transcendantale des logiques développementales (essentiellement celle de Lesniewski). Une telle démarche n’a jamais été tentée. Pour ce faire, il a fallu remonter aux sources immanentes de la Critique de la Raison Pure et de son architectonique. L’auteur a ainsi produit une apparence ontologique correspondant à l’ontologie du logicien polonais. Pour saisir la portée des définitions de la vérité et de l’objet, Marc Peeters convoque quatre concepts : la discrépance, le simulacre, (...) la reprise et l’historicité transcendantale. Ces concepts et les principes qui les régissent servent à repenser la logique chez Kant et à poser la question renouvelée, historique et logique, de la métaphysique. (shrink)

In the wake of 9/11 exceptionalism has gained in political leverage. Executive-centred government prevails in responses to 9/11; civil liberties have been curtailed; due process and fair trial can be ignored under particular circumstances; asylum and immigration procedures have been tightened; etc. What is at stake in these developments? In this essay I try to give an answer to this question by revisiting Franz L Neumann's concern that when fear of the enemy becomes the energetic principle of politics liberal democracy (...) is impossible. Revisiting the debates in legal and political theory in which he participated supports the view that security policy, in this case responses to terrorism cannot be evaluated only on the basis of how effective they are in dealing with a threat. In addition, a more political evaluation that looks at how security policies feed back into society is needed. Security responses can intensify the institutionalization of exceptionalism based on fear of the enemy. In that case security policy becomes paradoxical. It risks undermining liberal democracy through the very means by which it intends to save it. (shrink)

We propose that virtue ethics can be used to address ethical issues central to discussions about sex robots. In particular, we argue virtue ethics is well equipped to focus on the implications of sex robots for human moral character. Our evaluation develops in four steps. First, we present virtue ethics as a suitable framework for the evaluation of human–robot relationships. Second, we show the advantages of our virtue ethical account of sex robots by comparing it to current instrumentalist approaches, showing (...) how the former better captures the reciprocal interaction between robots and their users. Third, we examine how a virtue ethical analysis of intimate human–robot relationships could inspire the design of robots that support the cultivation of virtues. We suggest that a sex robot which is equipped with a consent-module could support the cultivation of compassion when used in supervised, therapeutic scenarios. Fourth, we discuss the ethical implications of our analysis for user autonomy and responsibility. (shrink)

The local security policy aims at improving the quality of life and the security ofthe local community, based on the expectations of that community. One ofthe instruments for the local authorities to reach this aim is the local police force's assistance. Police strategies exist on the levels ofprevention, intervention, tracing of criminals, preservation of the public order, victim treatment and neighbourhood development. Sense of responsibility in the field, job rotation and smooth internal communication act quite stimulatingly, both in the community-aimed (...) first-line care and in public assistance. The changing police structure in Belgium through which the state police are allowed to take up basis police tasks produced a number of bottlenecks as well asa number of opportunities.Municipalities play a major role in matters of public order and security in which the municipal police occupy a central place. Fluid cooperation between the major and the corps commander in a permanently innovating structure will certainly lead to a thorough and excellent community policing. (shrink)

The focus of the paper is on Rein Vihalemm’s novel approach to science called practical realism. From the perspective of Vihalemm, science is not only theoretical but first and foremost a practical activity. This kind of approach puts chemistry rather than physics into the position of a typical science as chemistry has a dual character resting on both constructive-hypothetico-deductive and classifying-historico-descriptive types of cognition. Chemists deal with finding out the laws of nature like the physicists. However, in addition to this (...) they deal with substances or stuff that is rather an activity typical to natural history. The analysis of the dual character of chemistry brings about the need to analyse philosophically the reasons why physics has held the position of the only science proper so far. The comparative analysis of physics and chemistry at the basis of practical realism suggests that it is chemistry rather than physics that should hold a special position among sciences. Perhaps we should exchange ϕ-science for χ-science. (shrink)

In view of the recent criticisms of Janar Mihkelsaar the authors explicate their position on what political semiotics is and why it is important for both semiotics and the social sciences. Some further research trajectories are also discussed in moving from semiotic theory of hegemony to fully developed subdiscipline of political semiotics that would be part of the “relational turn” in political analysis more generally.

In this commentary, I discuss three aspects of Monique Deveaux’s account. First, the method of Grounded Normative Theorizing she adopts to engage directly with the contexts and views of those experiencing poverty fits within a range of proposals to enhance the methodology of moral and political philosophy, and I would call on all philosophers working in this space to further develop these innovative methodologies. Second, Deveaux extends the capabilities approach by focusing on the group-based character of poverty and making the (...) case for building the collective capabilities of poor-led social movements. While I do not substantially disagree with this argument (in practice), I argue that we should be careful to avoid normative collectivism (as a theoretical assumption). Finally, Deveaux discusses political solidarity with people experiencing poverty. I argue that this should be based on esteeming each other’s various contributions in more diverse ways than only in narrow economic terms. Treating people in poverty and poor-led social movements as agents of justice, as Deveaux advocates, is a significant step in this endeavour. (shrink)

This is an attempt to take a look at chemistry from the point of view of practical realism. Besides its social–historical and normative aspects, the latter involves a direct reference to experimental research. According to Edward Caldin chemistry depends on our being able to isolate pure substances with reproducible properties. Thus, the very basis of chemistry is practical. Even the laws of chemistry are not stable but are subject to correction. At the same time, these statements do not necessarily make (...) Edward Caldin a predecessor of practical realism. The latter has other predecessors, like Rom Harré’s policy realism or Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism. Chemistry is an experimental science. The experiment is a purposeful and critically theory-guided constructive, manipulative, material interference with nature according to Rein Vihalemm, the founder of practical realism. Chemistry is physics-like science but just partly so. This is an important point in the context of the current paper. (shrink)

Although climate change jeopardizes the fundamental human rights of current as well as future people, current actions and ambitions to tackle it are inadequate. There are two prominent explanations for this motivational gap in the climate ethics literature. The first maintains that our conventional moral judgement system is not well equipped to identify a complex problem such as climate change as an important moral problem. The second explanation refers to people’s reluctance to change their behaviour and the temptation to shirk (...) responsibility. We argue that both factors are at play in the motivational gap and that they are complemented by crucial moral psychological insights regarding moral disengagement, which enables emitters to dissociate self-condemnation from harmful conduct. In this way, emitters are able to maintain their profligate, consumptive lifestyle, even though this conflicts with their moral standards with respect to climate change. We provide some illustrations of how strategies of moral disengagement are deployed in climate change and discuss the relationship between the explanations for the motivational gap and moral disengagement. On the basis of this explanatory framework, we submit that there are three pathways to tackle the motivational gap and moral disengagement in climate change: making climate change more salient to emitters and affirming their self-efficacy; reconsidering the self-interested motives that necessitate moral disengagement; and tackling moral disengagement directly. (shrink)

Practical realism is focused on the problem of how science really works. In the case of physics and chemistry, experiment is the centrepiece of scientific practice. The rapid development of contemporary natural science does not leave the experiment unaffected. The classical experiment is normally applied only to systems that can be considered structurally stable, repeatability being the key feature. After the introduction of the theoretical basis of irreversibility by Ilya Prigogine the essence of the experiment changed. The strict requirement of (...) repeatability has to be dropped. It will be discussed, whether the change is big enough for calling it revolutionary. There are means to update the understanding of the experiment by applying the experimental settings. The material experiment will probably be with us forever but its position on the scientific landscape will be shifted. (shrink)

The article addresses the two sides of the work of Nicholas Maxwell – his criticism of science and his call to bring about a revolution in academia encouraging it to become much more effective in tackling the real problems humanity is facing. I would use: It focuses on the connection of these two aspects of Maxwell’s work and provides a critical analysis of Maxwell’s conceptual framework. It is argued here that the two sides of Maxwell’s whole conception are not necessarily (...) connected, and do not have to be. Academia can be more effectively organized even without a change in our understanding of science. Maxwell has argued that academia has to aim at making wisdom rather than knowledge its goal. The knowledge-inquiry framework that currently prevails should be exchanged for wisdom-inquiry. Maxwell has explained his understanding of wisdom in several publications, while not being fully consistent in his explanations of what wisdom-inquiry has to embrace. In addition, Maxwell’s original approach to rationality goes against traditional attitudes. Maxwell is definitely critical of the Enlightenment but his attitude to Romanticism remains unclear. Related to these, the article addresses the future tasks of universities. (shrink)

Since several elections since 1991 were won by an extreme right political party, especially in the Flanders and in the city of Antwerp, polities has responded with an increase in attention for environmental and social policies. In a first reaction - and after a longstand period of budget cuts - more money was invested in the building ofsocial housing. Later this policy was broadened to a more comprehensive policy for the cities, trying to integrate the brick-and-mortar approaches with welfare policies. (...) In this contribution three things are put into perspective. The first deals with the rise of the urban problems. A second part deals with the new policies who are implemented today. These are territorially targeted at poor neighbourhoods. In a final part these policies are situated in a regional context since the liveability of the central cities can not be seen without its regional context, since very often the more wealthy people are living outside the administrative boundaries while the vulnerable social groups are living in the older inner city neighbourhoods. (shrink)

Artikkel käsitleb kriitiliselt üht viimaste kümnendite vastandust poliitilises filosoofias — ‘poliitilise liberalismi’ (Rawls) ja ‘radikaalse demokraatia’ (Laclau ja Mouffe) vahel. Artikkel püüab käivitada potentsiaalset dialoogi nende kahe näiliselt lahkneva lähenemise vahel. Kokkuvõttes näitab artikkel, et vastandus on möödarääkimine vähemalt ühes fundamentaalses mõttes: mõlemad lähenemised jagavad ühiskonnastmõtlemisel sama aluseetost. Artiklis nimetatakse seda ‘sattumuslikkuse eetoseks’ ning väidetakse, et see on kõige fundamentaalsem alusveendumus nii Laclau ja Mouffe’i ‘radikaalse demokraatia’ kui ka Rawlsi ‘õigluse kui ausameelsuse’ idee jaoks. Artikkel osutab ka ühele kesksele kitsaskohale (...) Laclau ja Mouffe’i lähenemises: nende suutmatusele kontseptualiseerida institutsioonilisi korraldusi tulenevalt nende ülemäärasest rõhuasetust demokraatia dekonstruktiivsele potentsiaalile. Selles suhtes osutatakse ka Rawlsi käsitluse ilmselgetele eelistele, kuna see pakub juhiseid organiseerimaks demokraatlikke institutsioone. The paper concentrates on a controversy in recent decades’ political thought between ‘political liberalism’ of Rawls and ‘radical democracy’ (represented in this paper by Laclau and Mouffe). The article tries to initiate a potential dialogue between these seemingly divisive approaches. In conclusion the paper maintains that the whole controversy is misguided in one fundamental respect: both approaches share the same underlying ethos in envisioning society—‘the ethos of contingency’. It is argued that it is the most fundamental tenet informing both Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony with its complementary idea of ‘radical democracy’, and justice as fairness conceived in terms of reciprocity with its accompanying idea of public justification and reflective equilibrium. _e article points to a central impasse in Laclau and Mouffe’s approach: its incapability to conceptualize institutional arrangements due to their overemphasis on the deconstructive potential of democracy. In this respect the obvious merits of Rawls’ conception are highlighted in view of his proposals for organizing democratic institutions. (shrink)