The exchange of ideas between nations during the Enlightenment was greatly facilitated by cultural ventures, commercial enterprise and scientific collaboration. But how were they exchanged? What were the effects of these exchanges on the idea or artefact being transferred? Focussing on contact between England, France and Ireland, a team of specialists explores the translation, appropriation and circulation of cultural products and scientific ideas during the Enlightenment. Through analysis of literary and artistic works, periodicals and official writings contributors uncover: the key (...) role played by literary translators and how they adapted, naturalized and sometimes distorted plays and novels to conform to new cultural norms; the effects of eighteenth-century anglomania, and how this was manifested in French art; how the vagaries of international politics and conflict affected both the cultural products themselves and the modes of dissemination; how religious censorship engendered new Irish Catholic and French Huguenot diasporas, with their particular intellectual pursuits and networks of exchan≥ the significance of newspapers and periodicals in disseminating new knowledge and often radical philosophical ideas. By exploring both broad areas of cultural activity and precise examples of cultural transfer, contributors to Intellectual journeys reveal the range and complexity of intellectual exchange and its role in the formation of a truly transnational Enlightenment. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse Debret's work Voyage historique et pittoresque au Brésil and show that it is marked by the French Enlightenment. The text is divided into four parts, in addition to the introduction and conclusion: the first presents the historical context from which Debret was trained in painting and received the main influences in that art; the second deals with the technical aspects of writing the work; the third touches on the indigenous theme; the fourth (...) problematises the urban chronicle, focusing on the city of Rio de Janeiro; the fifth and final part takes up his central thesis: Debret looks at Brazil from the perspective of the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Discussion about a dignified death has almost exclusively been applied to palliative care and people dying of cancer. As populations are getting older in the western world and living with chronic illnesses affecting their everyday lives, it is relevant to broaden the definition of palliative care to include other groups of people. The aim of the study was to explore the views on dignity at the end of life of 12 elderly people living in two nursing homes in Sweden. A (...) hermeneutic approach was used to interpret the material, which was gathered during semi-structured interviews. A total of 39 interviews were transcribed. The analysis revealed three themes: (1) the unrecognizable body; (2) fragility and dependency; and (3) inner strength and a sense of coherence. (shrink)

Since the beginning ofthe 1980s, successive Belgian governments have pursued a social security policy that is a combination of cutting social expenditure on the one hand and improving the plight of lower income categories among benefit recipients on the other. This has been realised by means of a strategy of 'targeting within universalism ', i.e. improving the benefits for the poor and restricting them for the better off, but without abolishing the entitlements oft he latter category completely. The Belgian experience (...) puts inperspective the 'middle class matters' argument, which predicts that, if cuts are made in social expenditure,the middle classes will use their political resources to defend the provisions they benefit from and to diminish the benefits reserved for the poor. (shrink)

Architecture and urbanism seem to be »weak« disciplines, constantly struggling for a better understanding of their nature and disciplinary borders. The huge amount of metaphors appearing in the discourse of both not only reference to their creative nature but also indicate their weakness and the missing piece strengthening their own understanding: a definition of space for architecture and of city for urbanism. But using metaphors in this field implies a problem - though metaphors achieve to bring opposites together, there remains (...) the question how literal they can actually become in order to relate to these subjects properly. In this volume, several authors from various fields using different approaches discuss this question. (shrink)

This is a review article of Ross (2005), a book which attempts to show the implications of cognitive science and economics for each other. Ross makes neoclassical economics central to the unification of the behavioural sciences, and defends its fundamental health against its critics. He locates the source of the empirical and conceptual problems besetting neoclassical economics in the mistaken assumption that the economic agents neoclassicism talks about refer directly to real, whole people. Ross argues that people are atypical as (...) economic agents; bugs and other non-social animals are much more typical, and neoclassical economics applies to them in a straightforward way. How then does economics apply to the atypical agents that people are? Ross’s answer builds on Ainslie (2001), who models people as being the result of strategic interactions between successive economic agents, and on Glimcher’s (2003) work on the neuroeconomics of game playing in monkeys which, Ross argues, can be extrapolated to humans. The author is impressed by the boldness of Ross’s vision, and the arguments offered to support it. However, doubts remain about Ross’s theory of the self, the lifespan of the proposed successive economic agents out of which real people are composed, the implicit suggestion that in economics approximations can be overcome, and finally the conclusiveness of Ross’s case against the need for revolutionary reappraisals of neoclassical economics. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the last century, the Swiss school opened special classes to educate the most vulnerable students. Measures were put in place to develop specific practices related to the role assigned to the special education teacher. An investigation of interactional type has covered the process for reporting student at a preschool and elementary school levels. Qualitative analysis of teacher reports was conducted following the model of Goffman. The results highlight the role of the specialist teacher at the school. (...) This works as a barometer of the integration in school life, the practices of marginalization in regular classrooms and school exclusion of some students. (shrink)

The history of the phrase absolute music has been studied by many theorists of music and music historians, while historians of philosophy proved to be rather reluctant to such syncretic concept. However, absolute music is exactly the case of non-philosophical appropriation of a philosophical category, which fits theoretical framework of the studies in intellectual history. Initial exploration on the synthesis of history of philosophy and musicology and music history has shown that the conceptual field of intellectual history enables the transition (...) from abstract ideas to concrete social history of thought. It is proved that "absolute music" is not an authentic concept of music culture of the nineteenth century, but rather a good invention of new musical hermeneutics, which defined a period in the development of music and paradigm of concepts that characterized autonomy of musical form. The subject of historical and philosophical studies of the phrase "absolute music" lies in transformation of a philosophical term into a unit of aesthetic discourse, and later its reincarnation in the concept of musical historiosophy. Both philosophical and musicological approaches to the history of absolute music are based on the assumption that only theoretically relevant assertions and judgments appeal to the hermeneutic reconstruction and generalization, whereas political and social references of the discourse of absolute music can be left aside. So futher research shall focus on possibilities of how to reach the concrete social background of that form of thinking which employs the idiom absolute music. (shrink)

The essays are grouped in three sections. In Part I Vogel considers the relationship between feminism and socialism.

Background: The importance of trust between patients and healthcare personnel is emphasised in nurses’ and physicians’ ethical codes. Trust is crucial for an effective healthcare personnel–patient relationship and thus for treatment and treatment outcomes. Cultural and linguistic differences may make building a trusting and positive relationship with ethnic minority patients particularly challenging. Although there is a great deal of research on cultural competence, there is a conspicuous lack of focus on the concepts of trust and distrust concerning ethnic minority patients, (...) particularly in relation to the concept of ‘othering’. Aim: To study which factors help build trust or create distrust in encounters between healthcare professionals and hospitalised ethnic minority patients, as well as study the dynamic complexities inherent within the process of ‘othering’. Research design: Qualitative design, in-depth interviews and hermeneutic analysis. Participants and research context: The interviewees were 10 immigrant patients (six women and four men – eight Asians, two Africans – ages 32–85 years) recruited from a south-eastern Norwegian hospital. Ethical considerations: Study approval was obtained from the hospital’s Privacy Ombudsman for Research and the hospital’s leadership. Participation was voluntary and participants signed an informed consent form. Conclusion: Distrust and othering may be caused by differences in belief systems, values, perceptions, expectations, and style of expression and behaviour. Othering is a reciprocal phenomenon in minority ethnic patient–healthcare personnel encounters, and it influences trust building negatively. Besides demonstrating general professional skill and competence, healthcare personnel require cultural competence to create trust. (shrink)

In modern and well-structured universities, ethics centers are playing a key role in hosting, organizing, and managing activities to enrich and guide students’ ethical thinking and analysis. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the goals, activities, and administration of ethics centers, as well as their role in promoting ethical thinking for academic, career, and business purposes. The paper also gives an overview of the most common activities organized by these hubs in order to highlight their contributions to pedagogy, student (...) learning and intellectual growth, research development, and community service. This study is based on an intensive review conducted on seventy-five ethics centers established in universities and colleges around the globe. First, it provides administrations of academic institutions with the basic knowledge needed to plan for potential new ethics centers. They can benefit from the present expertise of described ethics centers and project the practical methodologies on their university needs. In addition, directors and coordinators of established ethics centers would enhance their experience by including new activities and collaborations to their plans. Finally, ethics course instructors can benefit from the listed activities to increase student involvement by including practical methods and discussions beyond the classroom. (shrink)

Straipsnio tikslas – ištirti Latvijos filosofijos istoriografijos tendencijas per pastaruosius tris dešimtmečius. Autoriaus dėmesio centre dvi pagrindinės filosofijos istorijos rašymo prieigos – idėjų istorija ir intelektinė istorija. Iširus Sovietų Sąjungai Latvijos kultūriniame diskurse išpopuliarėjo terminas „idėjų istorija“. Filosofijos istorikai ėmėsi nušviesti glaudžius ryšius tarp Vakarų šalių ir Latvijos kultūrų. Tačiau pastarąjį dešimtmetį Latvijos filosofijos istorikai vis labiau renkasi intelektinės istorijos prieigą.

This qualitative study explored and described South African students’ experiences and perceptions regarding academic success. Focus group participants related academic success not only to achieveme...

This paper discusses Freud’s model of the psychical apparatus in the “Project”, and concludes that it is a remarkably sophisticated work which even today is still highly relevant to neuropsychological theorising. Freud rejects the notion that what happens in the brain can be clearly localised in space and time. This anticipates the notion of a distributed system found in recent developments in computing (“neural networks”) and in Derrida’s conception of systems characterised by différance. Every part of such a system is (...) constituted by its relation to the rest of the system. Although such systems are spatio-temporal, processes occurring in them cannot be pinpointed in space and time. Against the common charge that Freud has a passive hydraulic-reflex model of the psychical apparatus, the authors argue that Freud presents it as an open, complex, self-organising system. Ricoeur’s (1972) claim that the model of the psychical apparatus in the “Project” is essentially solipsistic, is accordingly rejected.In conclusion the authors explain why they prefer the model in the “Project” to the more linear model found in Ch. VII of the Traumdeutung. (shrink)

This paper gives a sketch for a reconstruction of the Freudian unconscious, and an argument for its existence. The strategy followed attempts to side-step the extended debates about the validity of Freud's methods and conclusions, by basing itself on the desire/belief schema for understanding and explaining human behaviour – a schema neither folk psychology nor scientific psychology can do without. People are argued to have, as ideal types, two fundamental modes of fulfilling their desires: engaging with reality, and wishful thinking. (...) The first mode tries to acknowledge the constraints reality imposes on the satisfaction of desires, while the second mode tries to ignore, deny or disguise these constraints, inasmuch as they threaten to make such satisfaction impossible or unfeasible. Crucially, wishful thinking can be used so as to ignore or deny any desire that is incompatible with other strong desires. Thus we end up unaware of the existence or nature of some of our desires, of the fact that they are in flu enc ing our thought and be hav iour, and of the process our own mind has used to thwart awareness of them. Once we acknowledge this possibility, we are already seriously entertaining the possibility of the Freudian unconscious, or something fairly close to it. The more aware the subject is that her wishful thinking is just that, the less effective it becomes. Wishful thinking thus requires an unconscious; it is inimical to a clear, complete and unambiguous acknowledgement of its own status. Next, various aspects of my account (and Freud's) that allow a conception of the unconscious in non-Cartesian terms are emphasised: the unconscious is largely constituted by semantic phenomena of a particular type: forms of representation which would conceal their meaning even if the full light of 'attention', Cartesian 'consciousness' or 'introspection' were cast upon them. If wishful thinking is an integral part of mental life, philosophers and others wishing to “educate humanity” will have to proceed differently from what would have been appropriate had rational thought and action been the only available option for satisfying desires. Mankind cannot bear too much reality – T.S. Eliot S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.22(4) 2003: 361-377. (shrink)

Cette étude, qui s’inscrit dans le cadre de la Théorie des Opérations Énonciatives élaborées par A. Culioli, consiste en l’examen du fonctionnement du marqueur to, lorsque celui-ci intervient en position initiale détachée pour introduire un terme référant à un animé humain. Cet animé humain constitue alors la subjectivité de référence sur le contenu exprimé par la relation prédicative. Dans cet article, nous nous intéressons au statut de cet animé humain : s’agit-il d’une source énonciative ou d’un simple sujet point de (...) vue? Par ailleurs, nous confrontons to aux marqueurs according to et for, dans le but de dégager les spécificités de ce marqueur et le rôle qu’il joue dans la construction du sens de l’énoncé. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 15.2 (2007) 177-179MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Reviewed byLise Vaugeois University of TorontoHildegard C. Froehlich, Sociology for Music Teachers:Perspectives for Practice (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007)Hildegard Froehlich's book, Sociology for Music Teachers, provides an important and much needed resource for undergraduate and advanced music education programs. Music students tend to see their interests and goals within a narrow framework, one that is (...) reinforced by the intensely personal nature of music-making as well as the material and psychological separation that inheres from our location in physically detached faculties of music. Froehlich's book provides a resource that directly addresses this tendency towards narrowness by inviting students to engage with sociological questions as they affect us personally, professionally, and in the context of questions much larger than ourselves.The book is organized into eight chapters, each of which explores a particular set of questions and introduces related studies and resources. She recommends that students actively engage with the material and provides suggestions for group discussion throughout the book. Each chapter introduces a comprehensive survey of related questions and the body of literature that investigates these questions. Thus, it can be used as the basis to structure an undergraduate course as well as a literature guide for graduate students.Undergraduate students are often resistant to exploring ideas beyond their [End Page 177] immediate conceptions of themselves as musicians and Froehlich addresses this resistance by discussing concepts about identity formation in the first chapter. Students are thus asked to consider a series of questions they can easily recognize as relevant to their own lives. She begins with the personal and the familiar and then brings in ideas that broaden the range of inquiry, gradually introducing concepts that challenge many of our assumptions about the meaning of music in different people's lives; the range of meanings possible within sounds and musical practices; the role of public education and various ways that music education functions within this larger system, and important questions about how we might conceive of ourselves as transmitters of extant cultural values or transformers of values and social relations.The chapter headings give an indication of the range of material introduced in her text: "The Performer and Teacher in You: A Matter of Identity"; "Teaching as Work: What Educational Sociologists Tell Us"; "Music Learning and Teaching as Socially Situated Acts"; "Music and Social Context: Macro, Micro, and Interactive Perspectives in Selected Texts on the Sociology of Music"; "Musical Meaning and Social Context: Thoughts by Selected Ethnomusicologists and Cultural Theorists"; "Sociology of Education: Major Theories and Their Connection to School Practice"; "Application of Sociological Constructs in Education to Music Schooling"; "Conclusion: You and the Big Picture." Each chapter gives a historical survey of the literature pertaining to the area of inquiry plus an introduction to contemporary writing. Competing discourses are introduced throughout.Froehlich's survey of disciplines that intersect with sociology is quite comprehensive. Amongst other disciplines, she includes foundational literature from musicology, philosophy of music education, sociology of education, and social psychology. The book is thus valuable as a resource for its bibliography alone. She also includes a glossary of terms, another feature that makes the book particularly helpful to undergraduate students. One writer I was surprised not to see included is Jacques Attali. His theoretical arguments on the relations of musical culture to economy provide a significant lens for considering the influence of music on social development and would have been an appropriate addition to the chapter on "Music and Social Context." I also missed work by musicologists and human geographers who have explored the role of race in music and music education.Related to these missing discourses, I have a major concern that is less a critique of Froehlich than an acknowledgement that this position has not yet been given sufficient consideration in our field, and to which Deborah Bradley refers as the "normative centering of whiteness."1 Froehlich bases her work on the assumption that her audience consists of a... (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage collectif, l'article de Guy Bouchard intitulé "Comment émasculiniser l' écriture philosophique" met d'abord en lumière le sexisme qui a caractérisé tant la philosophie que le langage en général; il s'interroge ensuite sur les façons "d'émasculiniser" l' écriture philosophique et au niveau de la pensée, et à celui du langage.

Dans cet ouvrage collectif, l'article de Guy Bouchard intitulé "Féminisme, utopie, philosophie" offre d'abord une définition du féminisme et de ses tendances. Il examine ensuite les liens entre le féminisme et la philosophie, laquelle, historiquement, s'est révélée dans l'ensemble à la fois masculine et masculinise. Finalement, il explore les rapports du féminisme à l'hétéropolitique, c'est-à-dire au thème de la société idéalisée soit sur le mode de la fiction (utopie), soit sur celui de la discursivité théorique (para-utopie), afin de faire ressortir (...) les enjeux du rapport des femmes tant à la philosophie qu'à la société nouvelle. (shrink)

The ego-focus of pioneer women on the South African frontier, 1760–1860, reflects distinct traits of mystical spirituality. The pioneer spirituality of women on the borders increasinglycame to expression in ego-texts with experiential inclinations. The leaning towards Jesuscentredmystical spirituality developed parallel to pietistic tendencies in Holland and Germany,and allegorical and tropological applications of the bridal metaphors in the Song of Songsformed a distinct element of female pietism on the frontier. Women believers in the interiorfavoured tropological applications of bridal metaphors in the (...) Song of Songs. The popularity ofsuch tropological applications can firstly be attributed to the physical conditions under whichpioneer women found themselves. Secondly, the availability of German pietistic workscontributed towards the religious culture of mystical and individualistic readings of bridalmetaphors in the Song of Songs. Tropological readings of the Song of Songs’ bridal metaphorsare traced to the theology of Bernard of Clairvaux particularly and other pre-reformationalmystical sources. (shrink)

European countries are required to establish equality bodies to combat discrimination. For the success of such bodies, informing citizens about their existence and functioning is essential. Therefore, this study conducts a thematic content analysis of news coverage (N = 129 Flemish news articles) pertaining to the recently established Flemish Human Rights Institute (FHRI) in Belgium. The analysis focuses on the subjects addressed in the news articles, the individuals or groups involved, and the interpretation of the three components of the responsiveness (...) triangle (policy system, social perspectives, and policy environment), which collectively determine the perception of a legitimate policy. The study’s findings reveal that the articles extensively feature varying viewpoints from politicians and civil society organizations regarding the FHRI’s policy system, including its competences, institutional formation, and operation, as well as its role in protecting citizens’ rights. However, the news articles refrain from offering a conclusive assessment of the institution’s legitimacy. (shrink)