Preparedness is an anticipatory approach developed in the military and health sectors in response to unforeseen and unforeseeable crises and emergencies. It has recently entered the debate over the resilience and sustainability of European food systems. The paper seeks to shed light on the implications of the European Union's adoption of preparedness in its food security policy, particularly focusing on the preparatory phase and the early activity the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism (EFSCM), a consultative body launched (...) by the European Commission in 2021. Through an analysis of documents and meeting minutes, we illustrate how debates on implementing preparedness are influenced by conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of sustainable food security. Results show that the EU's shift towards preparedness combines elements of continuity and novelty in its food policy. Continuity concerns the acknowledged need to deal with growing turbulence and unpredictability affecting food systems. Novelty involves attempts at building bridges between diverging imaginaries of sustainable food security to address both short-term and long-term challenges to food security. Also new is the shift to a ‘management,’ as opposed to a ‘problem-solving,’ outlook on crisis and emergency. (shrink)

Preparedness is an anticipatory approach developed in the military and health sectors in response to unforeseen and unforeseeable crises and emergencies. It has recently entered the debate over the resilience and sustainability of European food systems. The paper seeks to shed light on the implications of the European Union's adoption of preparedness in its food security policy, particularly focusing on the preparatory phase and the early activity the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism (EFSCM), a consultative body launched (...) by the European Commission in 2021. Through an analysis of documents and meeting minutes, we illustrate how debates on implementing preparedness are influenced by conflicting sociotechnical imaginaries of sustainable food security. Results show that the EU's shift towards preparedness combines elements of continuity and novelty in its food policy. Continuity concerns the acknowledged need to deal with growing turbulence and unpredictability affecting food systems. Novelty involves attempts at building bridges between diverging imaginaries of sustainable food security to address both short-term and long-term challenges to food security. Also new is the shift to a ‘management,’ as opposed to a ‘problem-solving,’ outlook on crisis and emergency. (shrink)

Fahr’s disease is a rare idiopathic degenerative disease characterized by calcifications in the brain, and has also been associated with balance impairment. However, a detailed analysis of balance in these patients has not been performed. A 69-year-old woman with Fahr’s disease presented with a long-lasting subjective imbalance. Balance was analyzed using both clinical and instrumented tests. The patient’s balance was normal during clinical tests and walking. However, during standing, a striking impairment in vestibular control of balance emerged. The balance behavior (...) displayed mixed parkinsonian and cerebellar features, with a discrepancy between the high severity of the static and the low severity of the dynamic balance impairment. The balance impairment characteristics outlined in this study could help neurologists and physiatrists detect, stage, and treat this rare condition. (shrink)

In the present paper, the author aims at laying the foundations of a symbolics of technical gesture, according to the thesis that symbolic faculty is another face of the technological one, and that they are both in truth two sides of the same coin. Accordingly, the author suggests to rename the whole dimen-sion as “meta-environmentality”. The analysis is carried out on the basis of a specific comparison between Cassirer’s definition of “animal symbolicum” and its scientific consistence in the light of (...) modern palaeontology. “Animal symbol-icum” is here compared with Leroi-Gourhan’s homo technologicus, and Cassi-rer’s ideas on human identity tested starting from paleoanthropological data. The result of the inquiry lead us to recognize the urgency of integrating Cassi-rer’s argument with the primacy of the technological capacity, but a deep anal-ysis of the characterizing attributes of the latter compels us to uphold the symbolic attitude of the technological dimension. The author then sketches a basic description of the guidelines of a symbolic theory of technology, and tries to show how the basic elements of such an approach were familiar both to Cassirer and Leroi-Gourhan. As a consequence of the whole theory, the author elaborates a chronological analysis of human identity, whose basic result is the determination of the future as main temporal dimen-sion of human acting. (shrink)

Mathematics and aesthetics are closely intertwined. Not only mathematical concepts, relationships and theorems can be aesthetically pleasing, but we also often find harmony between their results and the patterns of the world around us, and we like that. Yet, apart from rare exceptions, the beauty of mathematics, particularly in education, is mostly unrecognized: this science rarely meets the favour of students. Vedic mathematics is an approach which encapsulates the enjoyment and power of this knowledge, not only in the sphere of (...) thought process, but also in its practical utility. It highlights and develops the aesthetic dimension of learning in a very immediate sense. The aim of this article is to introduce the method – what it is and how it works – to give comparative examples of techniques and their efficacy, and to emphasize the aesthetic value it conveys. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to study the stages of development of corporate responsibility global standards and initiatives based on the development of integratednetworked governance. I propose a matrix based on four development stages built along a continuum and in crescendo collaboration among different global standards and multistakeholder initiatives. The research is based on the concept of the analysis of the integrated networked governance on an analysis of the Global Action Network (Waddell, 2011).

This essay compares Sikh and Christian thought about and practices of hospitality in light of the global refugee crisis. It aims to show how both practices of hospitality, and religious ethical thought about hospitality, can be enhanced by dialogue between traditions. The refugee crisis arises out of a global failure of hospitality, and the type of hospitality refugees most fundamentally need is that which confers membership in a political community. Comparing Christian and Sikh ethics of hospitality provides guidance toward building (...) rooted religious communities that welcome outsiders, including by incorporating them into political communities. In particular, Christians who hold social power and privilege can better fulfill ethical mandates of hospitality by looking to the example of Sikhs and other marginalized groups. Sikhs have often built communities through acts of hospitality and welcomed outsiders without fear, even in contexts where their own belonging is questioned and their own security is under threat. (shrink)

Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the present commentary, here translated into English for the first time, Alexander (...) develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time, including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the Middle Ages and later. (shrink)

The idea that guides this paper is that visual images of law have contributed in a very important way to the creation of a mental image of law that supports the belief in an obligation to obey the law. My purpose is: first, to identify and to analyse the visual representation of law and the messages they convey. Second, attempt to find out how they shape the mental image we have of law by following the construction of judicial space and, (...) then, through the iconography of law in order to understand how they build the belief that there is an obligation to obey the law; hence the idea that law has authority.Resumen:La idea central de este ensayo es que las imágenes visuales del derecho han contribuido en un modo importante a la creación de una imagen mental del derecho que apoya la creencia de que hay una obligación de obedecer el derecho. Así, el propósito de la autora es: primero, identificar y analizar la representación visual del derecho y los mensajes que ellas transmiten. Segundo, tratar de averiguar cómo estas representaciones conforman la imagen mental que tenemos del derecho: siguiendo la distribución del espacio judicial y, entonces, a través de la iconografía del derecho para comprender cómo construyen la creencia de que hay una obligación de obedecer el derecho; y por lo tanto la idea de que el derecho tiene una autoridad. (shrink)

En esta edición N.° 30 la sección literaria nos ofrece una auto-ficción, es decir, un trabajo de recreación de la memoria personal, escrito desde una perspectiva narrativa que no busca ofrecer juicios ni emociones. Este relato del escritor y académico salvadoreño Oscar García, residente en Suecia, representa un trabajo de memoria individual importante, especialmente en la situación actual de El Salvador, en el que los ejercicios oficialistas de “borrón y cuenta nueva” afectan en lo particular las posibilidades de construcción de (...) la memoria histórica, tanto para las nuevas generaciones como para la diáspora salvadoreña alrededor del mundo. (shrink)

This book examines recent forms of secularisation to demonstrate that we are now witnessing a "fourth secularisation": the autonomy of lifestyles. After introducing two initial secularising movements, from mythosto Logosand from Logosto Christianity, the book sets out how from Max Weber onwards a third movement emerged that practised the autonomy of science. More recently, daily life radicalises Weber's secularisation and its scope has spread out to include autonomy of individual practices, which has given rise to this fourth iteration. The book (...) outlines these first three forms of secularisation and then analyses the fourth secularisation in depth, identifying its three main dimensions: the de-institutionalisation of the religious lifestyle; the individualisation of faith; and the development of new social forms in the religious field. These areas of religious practice are shown to be multiplying partly as a result of the general aestheticization of society. Individuals, therefore, aspire to personal styles of life with regard to beliefs and the choice of their own religious practices. This book will be of great use to scholars of religious studies, secularisation and the sociology of religion. own to be multiplying partly as a result of the general aestheticization of society. Individuals, therefore, aspire to personal styles of life with regard to beliefs and the choice of their own religious practices. This book will be of great use to scholars of religious studies, secularisation and the sociology of religion. (shrink)

This article discusses the logic of the Epimenides Paradox using a graphical representation of the logical operators involved. The graphical representation of the Logical Operators is the one used in digital electronics. This method of investigation is very effective in revealing the hidden error in the reasoning that leads to the contradiction. The article explains the vicious circle that the mind goes through when trying to analyze the Paradox. Finally, the article proposes a solution of the Paradox with final conclusions (...) that are not paradoxical but simply counterintuitive. The endless deduction is generated by subsequent evaluations that take place on different levels. In its evaluation the Mind alternates a level of logical evaluation with a level of semantic evaluation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance ed. by John F. KilnerLaura AlexanderWhy People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance Edited by John F. Kilner grand rapids, mi: baker academic, 2017. 240 pp. $26.99Although Why People Matter does not use the word, it is an apologetic for the Christian faith and ethical tradition. Its argument begins with a moral (...) intuition that the authors take to be near universal: "people matter." If Christian theological and ethical thought can be shown to explain and shore up the notion that [End Page 190] "people matter" better than other ethical outlooks—and the authors believe it can—then the work will have (1) established a proper moral foundation for holding and acting on the conviction that people matter and (2) provided a reasoned argument for why Christianity as a fundamental belief system is better and truer than the other ethical systems examined.The text of Why People Matter is accessible and well written. The essays weave together coherently around two central ideas: each human person has inherent, inalienable dignity, and Christianity is the truest way of understanding and acting on that conviction. To demonstrate what Christianity has to offer, the book begins (after a summative introduction by Kilner) with a set of essays describing five ethical outlooks: utilitarianism, collectivism, individualism, naturalism, and transhumanism. In each, a different author lays out an ethical foundation and concept of the outlook, shows how the concept illuminates why "people matter," explains why it may seem compelling, and argues that it fails to grasp something crucial about why people matter and how to live as if they matter. As Kilner puts it, "each [outlook] recognizes and champions something important that is missing in other ways of thinking. However, each is dangerously reductionistic by making that missing element the all-encompassing focus of its approach" (190).Next, Kilner examines the Christian conviction that every human being is made in the image of God. He argues that this conviction, rightly understood, provides the only adequate foundation for the idea that "people matter." Respect for the image of God leads to proper respect for the human rights of others. Following this, David Gushee analyzes biblical passages and themes to argue that encounters with human beings are always also encounters with God; thus, we must treat people accordingly.Why People Matter accomplishes its purpose as an apologetic, and it seems especially likely to help committed Christians understand how their moral convictions can hold up in debates with common Western philosophical ethical outlooks. A wise friend once described C. S. Lewis (referenced several times in the work) as "a master of convincing Christians that what they already believe is true." That sort of persuasion is one of the appropriate goals of apologetic, and Why People Matter seems likely to achieve it.I have two comments on areas where readers may come away unsatisfied. First, the contributors' descriptions of the ethical outlooks they discuss are necessarily brief; those who hold these outlooks would likely wish to quibble with or nuance their arguments. Second, the work addresses only Western philosophical outlooks; the authors do not engage non-Christian religious traditions. In the spirit of interreligious cooperation, this is an excellent decision: frankly, I would not want to read a work that spent several chapters explaining why Christian ethical thought is superior to the ethical thought of, say, Hinduism or Judaism. But the work does leave unanswered, and unasked, the question [End Page 191] of whether a reader who does come to reject individualism, transhumanism, and so on might not just as well embrace Islam or Buddhism as Christianity.That said, this is an engaging work on the title question. It traces the basic contours of certain ethical outlooks, shows their strengths and potential weaknesses, and argues for a deep understanding, based in Christian Scripture and ethical thinking, of why people matter.Laura AlexanderUniversity of Nebraska at OmahaCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Qué debe entenderse, en el plano teórico, por “principio de igualdad”? Deben entenderse, a mi parecer, dos principios normativos diversos, entre sí complementarios y ambos esenciales en tanto fundamentos de la democracia: en primer lugar, el igual respeto y valor que debe ser asociado a todas las diferencias de identidad que hacen de cada persona un individuo diferente de todos los otros y de cada individuo una persona igual a todas las otras.

The author argues that the unity, coherence, and completeness of both the theory of law and the theory of politics and democracy throughout Bobbio’s work was produced by the fruitful connection that he established between the approaches of several different disciplines. Bobbio was able to connect legal theory and political philosophy, and to entwine theory itself, whether legal or philosophical, with meta-theoretical and methodological reflection. In Bobbio’s work even the theoretical-analytical approach was connected with an analytical history of ideas. Bobbio’s (...) capacity for synthesis and the systematic theoretical character of his investigations found specific expression, according to the author, in four fundamental connections: that between democracy and law; that between law and reason; that between reason and peace; and that between peace and human rights. This doctrinal framework, according to Ferrajoli, already suffices to establish Bobbio as a great teacher and thinker. Nonetheless, Ferrajoli also draws attention to certain aporias in Bobbio’s thought. Thus the author argues that Bobbio fails to recognize the influence of strictly defined constitutions on the legal order and continues to defend a merely formal conception of the validity of legal norms and of democracy. Bobbio retains a non-evaluative conception of legal science without considering the internal criticisms regarding the lacunae and antinomies that constitutional norms forcibly reveal with respect to both legal science and the practice of jurisdiction. (shrink)

Kant sobre las definiciones matemáticas, de Mirella Capozzi.

This article suggests that there are systematic ways in which the identity of the ‘self’, as created and performed through first-person markers, can be made relevant and consequential in particular episodes of interaction. More specifically, the study looks at generalizations that people present about themselves in local interactional contexts: displays of the types of people they are and the ways in which they always or never behave. It will be shown that such self-generalizations are typically used to account for one’s (...) behavior, and that this tendency is tied to the epistemic and moral rights provided by the first-person perspective, having the primary rights to one’s own experience. The study suggests that speakers’ personal characteristics or habitual behavior can be offered as a locally produced micro-identity, which can come to have interactional significance. (shrink)

William James states “Immortality is one of the great spiritual needs of man,” yet the arguments presented in his LECTURE ON IMMORTALITY, while interesting and ingenious, are somewhat less than conclusive in proving that human beings can survive bodily death. Therefore I attempt to clarity the notion of “individual survivor” through an analysis and discussion of various approaches to the problem, before returning to a further examination of James’ thought in the “Final Impressions of a Psychical Researcher,” the THEORY OF (...) THE SOUL, the PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, the VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE and a PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE. James’ often neglected Christian position provides the key to a better understanding of his thought on the topic, and allows me to conclude on a cautiously optimistic note on the possibility of a philosophical proof for human survival. (shrink)