Gesamtinhaltverzeichnis: Vorwort (Rudolf Haller). -Einleitung (Rudolf Haller). - Editorische Vorbemerkung (Thomas Binder). - I. Herbert Feigl: Zufall und Gesetz. - II. Marcel Natkin: Einfachheit, Kausalitaet und Induktion. - III. Tscha Hung: Das Kausalproblem in der heutigen Physik.".

In this influential work, first published in English in 1963, Durkheim and Mauss claim that the individual mind is capable of classification and they seek the origin of the ‘classificatory function’ in society. On the basis of an intensive examination of forms and principles of symbolic classification reported from the Australian aborigines, the Zuñi and traditional China, they try to establish a formal correspondence between social and symbolic classification. From this they argue that the mode of classification is determined by (...) the form of society and that the notions of space, time, hierarchy, number, class and other such cognitive categories are products of society. Dr Needham’s introduction assesses the validity of Durkhiem and Mauss’s argument, traces its continued influence in various disciplines, and indicates its analytical value for future researches in social anthropology. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: The availability of costly safety measures against transfusion-transmissible infections forces Western countries to confront difficult ethical questions. How to decide about implementing such measures? When are such decisions justified? As a preliminary to addressing these questions, we assessed which concerns shape actual donor blood safety policymaking in five Western countries. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Our qualitative study involved determining which issues had been discussed in advisory committee meetings and capturing these issues in general categories. Appropriate documents were identified in (...) collaboration with local decision-making experts in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The introduction of hepatitis B virus nucleic acid testing and selected measures against variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, West Nile virus, and Q-fever were chosen as cases representing decision-making on safety measures with high costs and low or uncertain added safety. RESULTS: A broad inventory of concerns was established, including: 1) nine categories of advantages and disadvantages of candidate safety policies; 2) six kinds of difficulties in assessing risks and forecasting the effects of safety policies; 3) 13 decision-making principles; and 4) six kinds of practical barriers hampering the translation of candidate policies into decisions. CONCLUSION: Blood safety policymaking involves a wide variety of competing concerns, and approaches to reconcile these considerations are themselves contested. Developing a systematic decision-making approach requires ethical reflection on, among others, reasonable costs of safety and the value of transparency in public policy. (shrink)

A long-standing tradition presents economic activity in terms of the flow of fluids. This metaphor lies behind a small but influential practice of hydraulic modelling in economics. Yet turning the metaphor into a three-dimensional hydraulic model of the economic system entails making numerous and detailed commitments about the analogy between hydraulics and the economy. The most famous 3-D model in economics is probably the Phillips machine, the central object of this paper.

The development of the individual attributes of ethics of responsibility in conjunction with the principles of civic liberalism in Slovak political thought is associated with the thinking of Ján Palárik. His political ideas published in the second half of the 19th century come out of an effort to characterize and achieve reform of the Habsburg monarchy on the basis of constitutionalism and federalism. These attributes, in Palárik’s opinion, were to bring more effective solutions to the issue of educating people in (...) their mother tongue and the creation of civic culture. A part of Palárik’s approach to the formation of civic skills is also the advocating of free expression, the idea of pluralism and gradualism within the idea of the unity of the different. His realistic approach to politics was framed by knowing and respecting the objective limits when implementing the aims of national civic freedom. Palárik linked the development of the state and the process of acculturation of the people with application of the principles of practical reasonableness and ethics of responsibility. He found its essence in understanding the interconnectedness of political goals and ideals, which were to be reflected in close association with the real limitations of the capabilities of individuals and social circumstances. (shrink)

Based on the presentation of a research framework (the shared work of teachers), this text uses an empirical approach to examine the hypothesis of a co-elaboration of the professional situation. To do so, the empirical investigation, based on the Goffman framework, analyzes the process of reconstructing a teaching session (reference situation) over the course of a pedagogical counselling session (support situation) characterized by interaction between a beginning teacher and a trainer. The invalidation of the hypothesis leads to a suggested conceptualization (...) of the professional situation combining definitional approaches (emphasizing the duality between its singularity and its genericity) and methodological approaches. A partir de la présentation d’un cadre de recherche (le travail partagé des enseignants), ce texte soumet à l’empirie l’hypothèse de la co-élaboration de la situation professionnelle. Pour ce faire, en s’appuyant sur le cadre de Goffman, l’enquête empirique analyse le processus de reconstruction d’une séance d’enseignement (situation de référence) au cours d’une séance de conseil pédagogique (situation support) caractérisée par l’interaction entre une enseignante débutante et un formateur. L’invalidation de l’hypothèse débouche sur une proposition de conceptualisation de la situation professionnelle qui combine des approches définitoires (insistant sur la dualité entre sa singularité et sa généricité) et méthodologiques. (shrink)

Saving the phenomena is shaping the phenomena: recognising that a specific phenomenon exists implies the existence of a mechanism that gives rise to the phenomenon and that the phenomenon has a shape. These two aspects are inextricably connected: determining the best shape is determining the mechanism that produces it. What is best then depends on evaluating the nature of the simplicity of the mechanism.

Krankheit und Sterben bilden die allgemeinsten und zugleich verbindlichsten Tatsachen des menschlichen Lebens. Vor dem Hintergrund eines Befundes der Todesverdrangung der Moderne ruckt dieser Sammelband die menschliche Versehrbarkeit und Sterblichkeit ins Zentrum und tragt ihrer ewigen Aktualitat Rechnung. Thematisch weitgefachert sind in einem interdisziplinaren und interprofessionellen Ansatz Beitrage aus den Bereichen Medizin, Psychologie, Theologie, Kirchengeschichte, Religionspadagogik, Religionssoziologie, Literaturwissenschaft, Agyptologie, Assyriologie und Philosophie versammelt. Neben dem wissenschaftlichen Fachpublikum richtet sich der Band insbesondere auch an Leserinnen und Leser aus den Berufsfeldern der (...) Krankenpflege, Medizin und Psychologie.". (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to what the Old Testament has to say regarding displacement and displaced people – refugees, migrants and the marginalized members of society. It surveys the instructions regarding the correct attitude and protective actions owed to ‘the stranger’ found in the Old Testament Law and it points to the divine preference to side with the suffering and the vulnerable evident in the Old Testament Prophets. Although not an exhaustive treatment of Old Testament passages tackling this topic, (...) the discussion helps make clear the fact that God is particularly concerned with justice and care for the disadvantaged members of the society, including aliens, refugees and migrants. The conclusion of the article calls the readers to consider some of the missiological-ethical implications of such concern in our contexts today. (shrink)

In recent years, experts in geriatric care have increasingly promoted the use of reminiscence museums, collections of period objects that are used to help senior citizens draw on old memories in order to recall and talk about their past. Hands Off Not an Option is a practical guide to making and using such collections, showing how to establish and fill out a museum and illustrating the ways it can be used within senior care facilities and within individual homes. The book (...) will thus be of value both to those practicing in geriatric medical and social care and to individual families working with aged relatives. The book includes 1 DVD. (shrink)

Štúdia interpretuje udalostnú hermeneutiku francúzskeho fenomenológa Clauda Romana, ktorú postuloval v publikáciách Udalosť a svet, Udalosť a čas a Tam je, a to cez prizmu umeleckej skúsenosti. Štúdia si kladie za cieľ interpretovať pojmy ako udalosť, advenant, ex-per-iancia, rekonfigurácia a ničota a poukázať na ich súvislosť s umením. Pracovná téza je: Advenant býva umelecky. Cieľom štúdie tak nie je len analýza a pred-stavenie Romanovho diela, ale aj vyzdvihnutie tendencií smerujúcich k chápaniu udalosti a advenanta v umeleckých kontúrach. Štúdia preto analyzuje (...) autorov kontext, ktorý tvorí fenomenologická hermeneutika, predovšetkým diela Martina Heideggera a Henriho Maldineya. V súvislosti s rekonfiguratívnym aspektom advenantovho bytia sa v štúdii stáva ústredným konceptom pojem figúry, z ktorého následne vyplýva problém herectva. (shrink)

T he study interprets Alain Badiou’s philosophy using Vincent Descombes’ Le même et l’autre (The Same and the Other). We believe that placing Badiou in the context of French philosophy of the 20th century can show him in a new light. Descombes’ book forms an interpretive framework from which the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and G. W. F. Hegel emerge. We perceive Badiou as an author who connects two phases of French philosophy (postulated by Descombes): the period of the three (...) H’s (Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger) and the period of (post)structuralism (Nietzsche, Freud, Marx). T he study will try to show connections, but also differences, between these concrete philosophies. The goal, in the meantime, is to shed light on Badiou, who can still be described as an (sufficiently) author who isn’t reflected, through the philosophy of authors who have already been reflected. We will move into the center of Badiou’s thinking through his inaesthetics. (shrink)

To define abstract art, which occupies such an important place in contemporary aesthetics, merely as a plastic mode of expression that makes no attempt to seek its own forms among those already existing in reality is to give a very inadequate notion of it. The term “non-figurative art,” which is sometimes used to describe it, arbitrarily restricts its range by stressing as peculiar to it this elementary fact alone and by characterizing abstract art solely as a controversial or even as (...) a revolutionary art, as opposed to traditional aesthetics, which is itself figurative. Abstract art at times has also been called “concrete” or “non-objective” art. All these definitions have as little validity in themselves as those that are made use of in the history of art and are acceptable only at their “face value,” to use the monetary term, because they have no absolute value but merely a conventional one based on the principle of exchange (Baroque, Gothic, Rococo, Cubist). However, they are not to be ignored, since they do express the state of uncertainty, uneasiness, and indecision that afflicts most amateurs and even historians of art in regard to abstract art. At the same time, these definitions also indicate an awareness that we are dealing with a very important and complex phenomenon, enriched by extensive projections into the domain of social psychology, sociology, and probably even metaphysics. (shrink)

On the eve of Mexican independence one of the intellectual leaders of the movement, Dr. Servando Teresa José de Mier, whom the “new despotism” had incarcerated in the prison of San Juan de Ulúa, reflected on the Idea of the Constitution Conferred upon America by the Kings of Spain before the Invasion of the Old Despotism. He evoked with fervor the epoch—at the height of the reign of Charles V—when Fray Bartolome de Las Casas introduced the new laws protecting the (...) Indians in the Council of the Indies (1542-1543), when he imposed upon the conquest the ideal of pacific evangelization formulated in his De unico vocationis modo, and in a memorable controversy finally triumphed over the “notorious Sepúlveda, advocate of war and slavery” (1550). “It was,” Mier maintained, “the most significant epoch of American history, for it marked the termination of America's major misfortunes and laid the foundation of her fundamental laws or true constitution.”. (shrink)

" Notre époque est celle de la prise de conscience de l'unité humaine. Dès lors, il est temps que la philosophie accomplisse sa vocation à l'universalité. Comme la nature est cela seul qui s'offre avec évidence à tous les hommes, une philosophie œcuménique ne peut être qu'une philosophie de la Nature. Or, si l'on lit le Tao-te king avec, en pensée, la philosophie naturaliste des Grecs d'avant Socrate, celle, en particulier, d'Héraclite, on se trouve en pays familier, et l'on vérifie (...) que les mêmes évidences essentielles s'imposent à tous les humains, à tous ceux du moins capables d'appréhender la Nature dans l'Ouvert. " M.C. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article se propose d’examiner comment la notion de « culture de guerre », avancée par certains historiens pour qualifier l’engagement des intellectuels français dans l’Union sacrée contre l’Allemagne dès 1914, se décline dans le cas de Durkheim. À travers l’exemple de son texte de propagande le plus connu : L’Allemagne au-dessus de tout, on se propose de débusquer les arguments sociologiques plus ou moins implicites qu’il mobilise pour dénoncer la « mentalité allemande ». Il en résulte qu’au regard (...) de sa vision de l’évolution des sociétés, la conception du rôle de l’État défendue par l’Allemagne en guerre doit être comprise comme une régression, un « retour vers le primitif », donc comme une énigme sociologique impensée et impensable dans la logique rationaliste qui était la sienne. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant states that indirect arguments are not suitable for the purposes of transcendental philosophy. If he is correct, this affects contemporary versions of transcendental arguments which are often used as an indirect refutation of scepticism. I discuss two reasons for Kant’s rejection of indirect arguments. Firstly, Kant argues that we are prone to misapply the law of excluded middle in philosophical contexts. Secondly, Kant points out that indirect arguments lack some explanatory power. They can show that something is true (...) but they do not provide insight into why something is true. Using mathematical proofs as examples, I show that this is because indirect arguments are non-constructive. From a Kantian point of view, transcendental arguments need to be constructive in some way. In the last part of the paper, I briefly examine a comment made by P. F. Strawson. In my view, this comment also points toward a connection between transcendental and constructive reasoning. (shrink)

Apresenta o desenvolvimento sustentável como uma utopia possível. Expõe as reflexões de pesquisadores que levantam críticas e apontam caminhos para a revisão do papel da universidade, da ciência e das políticas públicas.

Commentaire des Maximes capitales XXXI à XXXVIII. La théorie épicurienne du droit doit être pensée à partir de la distinction entre les désirs naturels, dont la satisfaction réfléchie donne le bonheur, et les désirs non naturels ou « vains », qui nous engagent dans la poursuite indéfinie d'un bonheur inaccessible. Si les humains se bornent à satisfaire leurs désirs naturels, ils forment une société sans conflits, où règnent la paix et le juste selon la nature. S'ils sont animés de « (...) vains désirs », ils créent une société du progrès indéfini, du toujours plus, et ils inventent le droit positif. Toutefois, la société complexe, œuvre des « insensés », a une base naturelle, car les « insensés » ont des désirs naturels, de sorte que le droit positif a une part par ou il s'accorde avec le droit naturel. A commentary of Capital Maxims XXXI to XXXVIII. The Epicurean theory of law is best conceived through the distinction between natural desires, the satisfaction of which provides happiness, and non natural or "vain" desires, which subject us to the indefinite pursuit of an unreachable happiness. If humans content themselves with satisfying their natural desires, they form a society without conflicts, where peace and justice according to nature prevail. If they are driven by "vain desires", they create a society of indefinite progress, of "bigger and better", and they invent positive law. However, complex society, created by the "unwise", has a natural foundation, for the unwise do have natural desires, so that positive law partly agrees with natural law. (shrink)

Un moment heureux de ma vie furent ces journées de mai 2012 où mes amis Jean-Philippe Catonné, André Comte-Sponville, Françoise Dastur, Gilbert Kirscher et Yvon Quiniou sont venus à "La Maison-neuve" pour débattre de ma philosophie. J'admire la profonde compréhension qu'ils ont montrée, de ma façon de voir les choses, bien qu'ayant la leur propre. Ils ont leurs philosophies et j'espère que ces Entretiens inciteront les lecteurs à se tourner vers elles autant que vers la mienne. Mon "scepticisme à l'intention (...) d'autrui" me permet de concilier la certitude que j'ai avec l'existence d'autres pensées philosophiquement cohérentes. (shrink)