Videoüberwachung ist heute allgegenwärtig. Sie dient dazu, Delikte im Nachhinein aufzuklären, zur Echtzeit-Überwachung oder zur Abschreckung. Darüber hinaus gibt es aber auch wirtschaftliche Interessen für eine Videoüberwachung und automatische Erfassung von Personen – z.B. zur Erstellung von Kundenprofilen und somit zur Analyse von Kaufverhalten. Dem gegenüber stehen Rechtsanspruche sowie ethische und gesellschaftliche Grundnormen, etwa dass Menschen nicht unter Generalverdacht gestellt oder ohne Zustimmung aufgezeichnet werden dürfen. In dieser Arbeit wird ein technischer Lösungsansatz behandelt, der eine flexible Handhabung der Videoüberwachung erlaubt. (...) Es werden in diesem Zusammenhang neben der technischen Umsetzung auch ökonomische, ethische und juristische Fragen betrachtet. Der Lösungsansatz besteht darin, Personen auf Videoaufnahmen durch ein kryptographisches Verfahren unkenntlich zu machen, noch bevor die Aufnahmen die Kamera-Elektronik verlassen. Nur mittels eines geheimen kryptographischen Schlüssels können einzelne Zeit- und Bildbereiche einer Aufnahme wieder deanonymisiert werden, wodurch rechtlichen wie ethischen Bedenken Rechnung getragen werden kann. In kommerziellen Szenarien erlaubt es diese digitale Tarnkappe, dass Kunden z.B. im Rahmen eines Prämien-Programms freiwillig auf Anonymisierung verzichten. Während in der Literatur der Informatik bereits seit längerem Technologien für solche System beschrieben werden, werden in dieser Arbeit Wege gezeigt, wie dessen Einbettung in die Gesellschaft wirklich realisiert werden könnte. (shrink)

Video surveillance is an omnipresent phenomenon in today’s metropolitan life. Mainly intended to solve crimes, to prevent them by realtime-monitoring or simply as a deterrent, video surveillance has also become interesting in economical contexts; e.g. to create customer profiles and analyse patterns of their shopping behaviour. The extensive use of video surveillance is challenged by legal claims and societal norms like not putting everybody under generalised suspicion or not recording people without their consent. In this work we propose a technological (...) solution to balance the positive and negative effects of video surveillance. With automatic image recognition algorithms on the rise, we suggest to use that technology to not just automatically identify people but blacken their images. This blackening is done with a cryptographic procedure allowing to revoke it with an appropriate key. Many of the legal and ethical objections to video surveillance could thereby be accommodated. In commercial scenarios, the operator of a customer profiling program could offer enticements for voluntarily renouncing one’s anonymity. Customers could e.g. wear a small infrared LED to signal their agreement to being tracked. After explaining the implementation details, this work outlines a multidisciplinary discussion incorporating an economic, ethical and legal viewpoint. (shrink)

Concerted, timely action for mitigating climate change is of uttermost importance to keep global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible. Air traffic already plays a strong role in driving climate change and is projected to grow—with only limited technical potential for decarbonizing this means of transport. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the expansion of air traffic or even facilitate a reduction in affluent countries. Effective policies and behavioral change, especially among frequent flyers, can help to lower greenhouse gas (...) emissions. For both, a positive evaluation and public support is indispensable. This study contributes to understanding air travel behavior and the perception of regulative policies. We examined the role of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, efficacy, global identity, and justice concerns for intentions to avoid flights and aviation-related environmental policy support. We conducted an online survey study with a quota sample of N = 2,530 participants in Germany. The strongest positive predictors of intentions to refrain from flying and policy support were perceived behavioral control to travel without flying, efficacy beliefs that avoiding air travel contributes to climate change mitigation, and intergenerational justice concerns; pro-travel attitude was a negative predictor. Moreover, we tested whether the provision of additional information on climate impact, global and intranational inequalities as well as subsidies affected the intention to avoid air travel and policy support. We found no effects of the different types of information. Nor did we find an interaction between the type of information provided and global or national identity. Our results highlight the need for a shift within the mobility sector that facilitates attractive and accessible transport alternatives in order to strengthen people’s behavioral control to choose other means than planes and their efficacy perceptions. Moreover, raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on future generations and developing strategies to promote people’s concern for intergenerational justice might motivate people to reduce air travel and thereby contribute to a livable future for new generations. (shrink)

A philosophical essay under this title faces severe rhetorical challenges. New accounts of the good life regularly and rapidly turn out to be variations of old ones, subject to a predictable range of decisive objections. Attempts to meet those objections with improved accounts regularly and rapidly lead to a familiar impasse — that while a life of contemplation, or epicurean contentment, or stoic indifference, or religious ecstasy, or creative rebellion, or self-actualization, or many another thing might count as a good (...) life, none of them can plausibly be identified with the good life, or the best life. Given the long history of that impasse, it seems futile to offer yet another candidate for the genus “good life” as if that candidate might be new, or philosophically defensible. And given the weariness, irony, and self-deprecation expected of a philosopher in such an impasse, it is difficult for any substantive proposal on this topic to avoid seeming pretentious. (shrink)

An interdisciplinary discussion of traumatic experience seeks better understanding and care for the suffering of individuals and societies.

The aim of the Committee’s discussions is to contribute to giving the conceptual instruments to those in governments and to society, in a broad sense, so as to understand the complex, dynamic, changeable ethical issues and their importance and urgency, envisaging the possible scenarios and lines of action in social policies to be undertaken at public level. These lines of action should attempt, through the search for an ethical balance, to reconcile the needs of science and technology to progress with (...) the protection of human beings, health, environment, and future generations. In this way, ethics committees play a key role in developing and implementing institutional ethics. (shrink)

La instalación El archivo de los abuelos, 1995, es el resultado de un proyecto de investigación que el artista Christian Boltanski realizó junto con los estudiantes de la Universidad de Leuphana, Luneburgo (Alemania) en la misma institución. El archivo reúne efectos personales de los abuelos de los estudiantes de aquella generación. Se trata de una pieza significativa dentro de la obra del francés porque no se atiene a las características habituales de sus obras de archivo, a las que denomino «meta-archivos» (...) por su carácter posmoderno de desestabilización del concepto mismo de archivo, y consecuentemente, del de documento y del de historia. El proyecto hizo patente el silencio sobre el Tercer Reich imperante en la época dentro de las familias, e hizo que este pasado reprimido resurgiese. Asimismo, puso de manifiesto los orígenes nazis del campus universitario. Por estos motivos, pese a poder considerarse un «meta-archivo fallido», es una obra de arte relevante y pertinente a nivel socio-cultural, y dentro de la obra de Boltanski, al arrojar luz sobre sus tácitos modus operandi y objetivos habituales precisamente por no cumplirlos. (shrink)

Los desafíos en las lecturas de fuentes documentales aparecen de modo frecuente en los cruces entre antropología e historia. Tanto desde la antropología histórica como desde la etnohistoria —campos de interacción difusos y a veces superpuestos, en ambos casos la búsqueda de información cualitativa sobre grupos sociales del pasado proviene del estudio de fuentes documentales— han surgido metáforas útiles que se convirtieron en verdaderas metodologías: lectura a contrapelo, against the grain, along the grain, entre líneas, etc. Menos se ha discutido (...) sobre la composición del corpus y la periodización que las investigadoras hacemos o replicamos al abordar nuestros trabajos. Siguiendo a Walter Mignolo (1995) y otros, me interesa discutir la articulación de un corpus históricamente diverso a partir de la noción de “semiosis colonial”. De acuerdo con esta idea, los distintos tipos de fuentes se vinculan por el referente que comparten, la situación colonial, sean o no producidas durante el período colonial. A partir del caso de una serie de documentos escogidos para la primera mitad del siglo XX en Argentina, sugiero que el estudio de las continuidades y rupturas se beneficia de un corpus que no suele ser considerado por los estudios coloniales. Para el caso de los imaginarios sobre los grupos indígenas del Chaco, señalo algunos beneficios y desafíos en tomar dos tipos de fuentes distintas en su intención, producción y circulación (informes ministeriales e historiografía oficial) para dar cuenta de su relación con un período anterior. Considero que tal ejercicio, lejos de restar especificidad a nuestra tarea, contribuye con una comprensión más compleja del período colonial y con la posibilidad de una mejor comunicación des-disciplinaria. (shrink)

One of the hallmarks of American Indian colonial experience was the arrival of Christian missionaries. The response of Native cultures to missionization has been complex, with some resisting the white man's religion and others embracing it. Throughout their contact with Christianity, however, many American Indians appropriated its stories on their own terms and for their own purposes. Stories about Jesus comprise one of the most important sites for this appropriation. This essay examines the ways in which the cultural production of (...) American Indian women makes a crucial intervention in the debates about Jesus' identity. It argues that the narrative negotiations of Native women in the contact zone of Euro-American encounters transform the theological category of christology. (shrink)

Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766) did not provide the sole perspective through which Emanuel Swedenborg’s work was known in Germany in the eighteenth century. Before Kant, another German philosopher was interested in Swedenborg from a completely different perspective: Christian Wolff. On the one hand, this paper analyzes the meaning of Wolff’s anonymous reviews of Swedenborg’s early writings published in Acta Eruditorum, the authorship of which was only recently discovered, in order to show Swedenborg’s intertwinement with German scholars during the (...) 1720s. On the other, I juxtapose Kant’s and Wolff’s evaluations of Swedenborg’s work at the origins of their different attitudes towards fundamental problems such as the nature of the soul and immortality. (shrink)

This article examines a genetic ancestry testing program called the Living History Project that was jointly organized by a nonprofit educational institute and a for-profit genealogy company in South Africa. It charts the precise mechanisms by which the LHP sought to shape a postapartheid genome through antiracist commitments aimed at contesting histories of colonial and apartheid rule in varied ways. In particular, it focuses on several tensions that emerged within three modes of material-discursive practice within the production of the LHP: (...) subject recruitment, informed consent, and participant reflections. In the end, it argues that several contradictory tensions were central to the making of the LHP’s postapartheid genome and that it should be understood as nonracial rather than antiracist. (shrink)

Resumo Entre 1988 e 1993, Iúri M. Lótman formulou algumas proposições sobre “a voz da massa anônima”: uma voz coletiva que, em certas situacões ligadas a crises de caráter cultural, é portadora de paixões violentas que podem produzir interferências profundas no curso da história. Em seus últimos trabalhos, o semioticista russo postulou, diante disso, a noção de uma semiótica das emoções como objeto de estudo para entender a dinâmica cultural, em especial de períodos tidos como revolucionários ou de transição, a (...) saber, quando a massa anônima é capaz de manipular os eventos ou quando, revendo o passado, confere aos eventos uma interpretação distorcida. Lótman focalizou, principalmente, a relação entre as grandes fraturas históricas, os mecanismos de autopropagação do medo e a criação cultural de bodes expiatórios. O presente estudo visa abordar a reflexão de Lótman sobre perseguição, com especial atenção à figura da mulher durante o fenômeno de caça às bruxas. ABSTRACT Between 1988 and 1993, Yuri Lotman composed a series of reflections on “the voice of the anonymous mass”: a collective voice that, in particular situations linked to a cultural crisis, is the bearer of striking passions, which can deeply influence history. In his late works, the Russian semiotician postulated, therefore, the idea of a semiotics of emotions as an object of study to understand the dynamics of culture, especially during periods perceived as revolutionary or transitional―namely, when the anonymous mass manipulates the events or, when looking back, gives them a distorted interpretation. Lotman focused in particular on the relationship between great historical fractures, the self-propagating mechanisms of fear, and the cultural creation of scapegoats. This paper is devoted to framing Lotman’s reflection on persecution, paying particular attention to women during the phenomenon of the witch hunt. (shrink)

A partir del título cabe preguntarse: 1) ¿Por qué incluir qué es pensar políticamente para Hannah Arendt en la currícula de filosofía? y 2) ¿Por qué incluir su pensar político desde una perspectiva feminista? En realidad, esta segunda pregunta fue la sugerida inicialmente por quienes me invitaron a las Jornadas. En primer lugar, responderé brevemente al título tal como figura en el programa.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life by Stanley Hauerwas, and: Without Apology: Sermons for Christ’s Church by Stanley HauerwasLaura M. HartmanApproaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life Stanley Hauerwas grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2013. 251 pp. $24.00Without Apology: Sermons for Christ’s Church Stanley Hauerwas new york: seabury books, 2013. 169 pp. $18.00Stanley Hauerwas is prolific. By my count, there are forty-six (...) books to his name, including these two from 2013. And yet in the preface to Without Apology, he writes, “I am often asked, ‘How many books have you written?’ My truthful answer must be, ‘I have no idea.’ … I could count them, but I have no interest in doing so” (ix). Hauerwas’s reluctance to number his career in books shows his preference for smaller units of measurement (“how some reader may find this sermon, or that sentence or chapter … helpful”), but it also reflects his view that he is not the sole author of his works. To his credit, he mentions two influential women—his wife, Paula Gilbert, an experienced clergywoman, and his assistant, Carole Baker, who gives the sermons a “work-over” after they are written (ix).Those who know Hauerwas know what to expect from these volumes: thoughtful arguments that unflinchingly assert the centrality of Christ and of the Church; a heavy dose of pacifism; major appearances from John Howard Yoder and Karl Barth (as well as multiple cameos from fascinating authors who are now on my to-read list); and accessible, open prose outlining clear, thought-provoking arguments. The two books reviewed here are quite different from one another: Without Apology is a book of sermons; Approaching the End is a book of essays loosely organized around a theme of eschatology. But both contain the hallmarks of “classic Hauerwas”—his signature mix of virtue ethics, communitarian interests, and narrative sensibilities.Without Apology contains recent sermons, primarily in Episcopal churches. Drawing on lectionary readings, Hauerwas brings his own theological interpretation and creates fairly short, satisfying sermons, which he readily describes (in Paula Gilbert’s words) as “tight” (87). This collection also includes four sermons on the topic of priesthood and some other writings of note: the already-classic “An Open Letter to Christians Beginning College” (good for use with Christian undergraduates) and “Sexing the Ministry” (food for thought for [End Page 215] seminarian and clergy alike). Without Apology manifests several major themes, but the biggest of these connects with the title: Hauerwas is “unapologetic” about his Christian faith and doesn’t engage in theology of the “apologetic” style. His emphasis, rather, is on being truthfully present with one another in the church community.Approaching the End promises eschatological reflections and delivers on the promise. Although he is writing about eschatology, Hauerwas strongly maintains that he is not reaching his own “end” and disavows any contention that Approaching the End is a kind of “swan song” (xiv). He addresses politics and war in several chapters. In “The End of Sacrifice: An Apocalyptic Politics,” he makes the case that if Christians believe Jesus’s sacrifice was “the end of all sacrifices,” then we should not “continue to participate in the sacrifice of war” (36). Similar themes emerge in “War and Peace,” later in the volume. In “Church Matters: On Faith and Politics,” Hauerwas writes, “One of the challenges Christians confront is how the politics we helped create has made it difficult to sustain the material practices constitutive of an ecclesial culture to produce Christians” (68). He welcomes the “end” of churches and denominations as we know them because “it means that the church is finally free to be a politics” (86).Hauerwas also discusses the future of churches and denominations. “The End of Protestantism” reiterates that “if the church is to be faithful … then we must recover what it means for the church to be an alternative politics” (92). This chapter’s emphasis on Methodism and his appraisal of Methodists as “free church Catholics” (94) is of note. In “Which Church? What Unity?” Hauerwas discusses the ecumenical movement, prompted by George Lindbeck’s challenge to do so (98). Hauerwas’s... (shrink)

ArgumentThe administration of mountain expeditions from the ground created special managerial problems. The Harvard College Observatory's Boyden Expeditions of 1887–1890 sent men and materiel to three sites: Pike's Peak, Colorado; Mount Wilson, California; and Chosica, Peru. Their goal was to test sites in order to find a suitable site for a permanent Boyden station to conduct astrophysical work in service of Harvard's preexisting projects. The logistical difficulties of living on the mountainside combined with the organizational difficulties of administrating a station (...) at a distance. The men who lived on the mountain were professionally vulnerable, and often cut off from their home observatory both by the weather conditions at their own altitude and local politics on the ground below them. Only when an unbroken line of communication could be established between the mountain station and the Harvard Observatory could the astronomers on both ends work together to create a successful expedition. (shrink)

Resumen Las opiniones que aparecen en la página web TripAdvisor, como muestra relevante de la promoción del Turismo 2.0, se convierten, dadas las características de este discurso, en macroactos de habla directivos en los que convergen actos de distinta naturaleza. Si bien se presentan como opiniones, trascienden los límites de la mera información para convertirse en actos directivos, ya que el opinante se ve implicado en la construcción de una especie de guía de ayuda a otros viajeros. Por tanto, el (...) objetivo de este trabajo es categorizar los distintos tipos de las denominadas por la página web TripAdvisor “opiniones” como sugerencias, consejos, recomendaciones y advertencias, y analizar las estrategias de atenuación a las que se recurre en su formulación al servicio de distintas actividades de imagen. Los resultados muestran una tendencia que nos lleva a proponer la distinción entre estos tipos de actos directivos sobre la base de: la recurrencia a estrategias de atenuación, factores como el poder o la voluntad del opinante, el coste-beneficio para el destinatario, así como las propias calificaciones de las opiniones – en las categorías “excelente”, “muy bueno”, “normal”, “malo” y “pésimo”– establecidas por la propia página web. Tener en cuenta todas estas variables nos ha permitido constatar la existencia de un continuo de los actos de habla que se corresponden con diferentes grados de estrategias de atenuación, también en función de las categorías de evaluación y de los mecanismos utilizados para producir el acto. (shrink)

Greek κρατύς and cognates (κράτος, κρατερός, etc.) are related to Vedic krátu- ‘resolve’ and Avestan xratu- ‘[guiding] intellect’. The cumulative phraseological evidence supports this etymological proposal: in at least ten cases, Greek personal names and phrasemes exhibiting a cognate of κρατύς (that is, κράτος and compounds with first member κρατ[α]ι-) combine with terms whose Indo-Iranian linguistic cognates are joined with Vedic krátu- and Avestan xratu-. Furthermore, Indo-Iranian expressions, in which Vedic krátu- and its compounds are referred to a god as (...) attributes, are structurally comparable to Greek κρατὺς Ἀργεϊφόντης. Since Ἀργεϊφόντης is likely to reflect ‘shining (cf. Greek φαίνω) with whiteness/brightness (ἀργει-)’, it is possible to identify Vedic phraseological matches for the Greek formula, namely expressions in which Vedic krátu- and its derivative krátumant- combine with the notion of ‘shining widely’, Vedic ví-bhā (Vedic bhā being a linguistic congener of φαίνω). The phraseological correspondence between Vedic krátu- … agní- ‘Agni, [endowed with] resolve’, and κρατὺς Ἀργεϊφόντης ‘Argeiphontes, endowed with superior might (κράτος)’ may be added to the dossier of common phraseology which the Greek god shares with the Old Indic fire-deity. (shrink)

The exhibition Space/Sight/Self was designed to study the role of portraiture in contemporary art as a nexus of three issues identity, vision, and place. The goal was to produce a portrait, as it were, of contemporary portraiture. This catalog documents the exhibition and helps to facilitate viewers' reflections and responses about the spaces, sights, and selves that enable us to construct and question our identity.".

The housing sector is currently under pressure: demographic shifts, urbanisation as well as the availability and costs of housing have led to increasing prices. Concerns are being raised that these rising housing costs could lead to intergenerational conflicts. While older generations often live in their privatelyowned dwellings, younger cohorts struggle to become homeowners, moving the field of housing into the spotlight of national debates. We analyse the importance of housing for Europeans using data from Eurobarometer. Results show that the relevance (...) of housing increased between 2008 and 2018. However, generational differences were found: while older and younger people see housing as an important topic at the country level, only the younger generation seems to be affected personally. Online Appendix. (shrink)

Resumo: A pesquisa aqui apresentada resulta de uma reflexão sobre as epistemologias subalternas, sobretudo de matrizes africanas, tomando como exemplo a etnomatemática. O discurso filosófico sobre o “epistemicídio” dos saberes locais e tradicionais, por parte do paradigma científico dominante, pode ser aplicado a vários âmbitos disciplinares, entre os quais a matemática, nas suas duas vertentes principais, a aritmética e a geometria, que representa um caso paradigmático e significativo. Teorizada pela primeira vez pelo brasileiro D’Ambrosio e o holandês-moçambicano Paulus Gerdes, a (...) etnomatemática vive hoje uma contradição: ela foi aceite em termos epistemológicos, mas, especialmente em África, teve muitos problemas em se afirmar, entrando com dificuldades nos curricula oficiais. A pesquisa mostra como se deu tal processo, em Moçambique, um país símbolo do caminho da etnomatemática africana, em consideração da contribuição de Gerdes e da educação progressiva na primeira fase da sua independência.: This work aims at carrying out a reflection on the subaltern epistemologies, considering as an example the Ethnomathematics. The philosophical discourse on the “epistemicide of local and traditional knowledge by the dominant scientific paradigm can be aplied to various disciplinary fields. Among them it is possible to find Mathematics, in its two main branches, arithmetic and geometry. Mathematics represents a paradigmatic and meaningful case. It has been theorized for the first time by the Brazilian D’Ambrosio and the Dutch-Mozambican Paulus Gerdes, ethnomathematics is living today a contradiction: it was accepted in epistemological terms, but, especially in Africa, it registered many problems in assert itself, showing difficulties in being accepted in official curricula. The research shows how this process occurred in Mozambique, a symbolic country for African ethnomathematics, both in consideration of Gerdes’ contribution and of the progressive education during the first phase of its independence. (shrink)

The article addresses the role and being of the voice, and its relation with the echo in two contexts. We start with Plato’s cave myth and the dynamic between the interior and the exterior of the cave. Then we look at the relationship between the voice-echo and the exterior. The exterior is analyzed from a series of literary, musical, and cinematographic works. The constant and guiding line, how independent the voice is; its articulation with the speaking subject; its autonomous possibilities (...) and its plural richness. (shrink)

En este artículo recorro algunas de las páginas de la obra kantiana que introducen la problemática de los otros seres racionales, me centro para ello en Historia universal de la naturaleza y Teoría del cielo, la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres y la Antropología en sentido pragmático. Mi propuesta es que la hipótesis de la existencia de otras formas de racionalidad, que en algunos textos Kant sitúa en otros planetas, nos proporciona una perspectiva necesaria para poder dar alguna (...) respuesta a la cuestión ¿qué es el ser humano? Si bien Kant aborda en textos muy relevantes la forma de tener por verdad la existencia de tales seres, lo realmente importante es el ser capaces de asumir esa perspectiva para reflexionar en torno a nuestra racionalidad. (shrink)

El duelo literario se concibe desde la ficción como un recurso empleado por los escritores contemporáneos que, ante la imposibilidad de un duelo individual, buscan mediante la narración sanar las muertes ultrajadas por la 163ltima dictadura militar argentina; en tiempos donde la memoria de las generaciones recientes se encuentra vulnerable al olvido que el Estado ha tratado, en vano, imponer. Por ello escribir, sobre todo a partir del periodo de redemocratización, se convierte en una encrucijada entre la versión de los (...) vencedores y los vencidos, donde el pasado se conecta con el futuro para NO OLVIDAR. (shrink)