We will explore ecumenical collaboration for the sake of mission in the 21st century in this region. In this sense, we will consider ecumenical relations, theological education, migration and diaspora, and present challenges, and will try to identify the vision of the future. We will do this by focusing on four countries from the region as critical studies: the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Serbia.

Ultimately, this affects the natural interplay between privacy, personal identity and identification. This book investigates that interplay from a systemic, socio-technical perspective by combining research from the social and computer sciences. It sheds light on the basic functions of privacy, their relation to identity, and how they alter with digital identification practices. The analysis reveals a general privacy control dilemma of (digital) identification shaped by several interrelated socio-political, economic and technical factors. Uncontrolled increases in the identification modalities inherent to digital (...) technology reinforce this dilemma and benefit surveillance practices, thereby complicating the detection of privacy risks and the creation of appropriate safeguards. Easing this problem requires a novel approach to privacy impact assessment (PIA), and this book proposes an alternative PIA framework which, at its core, comprises a basic typology of (personally and technically) identifiable information. This approach contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of privacy impacts and thus, to the development of more effective protection standards. This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of critical security studies, surveillance studies, computer and information science, science and technology studies, and politics. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo determine whether gait and accelerometric features can predict disorientation events in young and older adults.MethodsCognitively healthy younger and older participants navigated on a treadmill through a virtual representation of the city of Rostock featured within the Gait Real-Time Analysis Interactive Lab system. We conducted Bayesian Poisson regression to determine the association of navigation performance with domain-specific cognitive functions. We determined associations of gait and accelerometric features with disorientation events in real-time data using Bayesian generalized mixed effect models. The accuracy (...) of gait and accelerometric features to predict disorientation events was determined using cross-validated support vector machines and Hidden Markov models.ResultsBayesian analysis revealed strong evidence for the effect of gait and accelerometric features on disorientation. The evidence supported a relationship between executive functions but not visuospatial abilities and perspective taking with navigation performance. Despite these effects, the cross-validated percentage of correctly assigned instances of disorientation was only 72% in the SVM and 63% in the HMM analysis using gait and accelerometric features as predictors.ConclusionDisorientation is reflected in spatiotemporal gait features and the accelerometric signal as a potentially more easily accessible surrogate for gait features. At the same time, such measurements probably need to be enriched with other parameters to be sufficiently accurate for individual prediction of disorientation events. (shrink)

German law is commonly assumed to be strongly influenced by legal scholarship. This was certainly true in the past, and this article explores whether it is still the case today. But what is actually meant by ‘influence’ in the context of law? Who exerts it on whom, and how? These questions are analysed in the first part of the article. It is then shown, by drawing on biographical material, legislative history and case law, how legal scholarship contributes to both the (...) legislative and the judicial lawmaking process in Germany—and where it does not. Finally it is asked how the specific relationship between legal academics and lawmakers in the German legal system can be explained and whether this model can be transferred to other systems. (shrink)

Money in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece to the Great Inflation of the 1970s In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possibilities and limits. The Currency of Politics takes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the (...) insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule. Money appears to be beyond the reach of democratic politics, but this appearance—like so much about money—is deceptive. Even when the politics of money is impossible to ignore, its proper democratic role can be difficult to discern. Stefan Eich examines six crucial episodes of monetary crisis, recovering the neglected political theories of money in the thought of such figures as Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. He shows how these layers of crisis have come to define the way we look at money, and argues that informed public debate about money requires a better appreciation of the diverse political struggles over its meaning. Recovering foundational ideas at the intersection of monetary rule and democratic politics, The Currency of Politics explains why only through greater awareness of the historical limits of monetary politics can we begin to articulate more democratic conceptions of money. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophy and the Interpretation of Pop CultureStefán SnaevarrPhilosophy and the Interpretation of Pop Culture, edited by William Irwin and Jorge J. E. Gracia. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, 297 pp., $29.85 paper.There has been quite a boom lately in the market for philosophical books on popular culture. The young American philosopher William Irwin has led the way by starting the fad of "... and philosophy" books; the (...) first one that Irwin edited was Seinfeld and Philosophy. So it is only fitting that he is one of the editors of this volume on philosophical interpretation of popular culture. In contrast to most of the earlier books of this kind, a sizable number of the contributors to this volume belong to the top brass of America's aestheticians: Noël Carrol, Ted Cohen, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Richard Shusterman, to name but a few. The book is divided into two parts, "Philosophy and Popular Culture" and "Interpretation and Popular Art Forms." These titles are self-explanatory; it might be added that the aforementioned top brass dominates the first part.Irwin provides the book with a witty and well-written introduction, but he operates with a very wide definition of popular culture, classifying movies as such as items of pop culture. However, the medium surely is not the message. The fact that novels can be part of popular culture does not make Joyce's Ulysses a pop cultural object. Irwin's chapter, "Philosophy as/and/of popular culture," is rather two papers in one. One half addresses the concept of popular culture, containing an insightful critical evaluation of, among others, Noël Carroll's concept of mass art. The other half proposes that we can use popular culture to disseminate philosophical ideas to the general public. More so than in the introduction, Irwin is actually rather critical of popular culture in this chapter. He worries about its negative effect on culture in general—no cult of pop culture here. In addition, he rejects the notion of popular culture having the potential of becoming philosophy or its surrogate. He reminds us that Socrates used examples from everyday life and the popular culture of his day to make his philosophical points. In a similar fashion, the popular culture of today can be a stepping stone for philosophers to reach wider audiences. If you cannot beat them, join them! Popular culture could, for instance, be used to warn the public against its own evil aspects. This is an excellent idea, and I could not agree more; I myself often use examples from popular culture in my own lectures with good results. Irwin should expand on this idea and present it in a separate article.Richard Shusterman's chapter does not add much to his earlier writings. It is also somewhat like two articles in one; the first is a criticism of the denigration of pleasure and entertainment as aesthetic values, and the second half is an attempt to bridge the divide between intrinsic value and instrumental value. Both halves [End Page 111] contain some excellent arguments, but popular culture tends to be on the fringe in Shusterman's argument. The focus is on other more traditional, philosophical issues. Perhaps another venue would have been more suitable for this article.In contrast to Shusterman, Caroline Korsmeyer addresses the issues of popular culture in a fairly straightforward manner. Popular culture can be educational, even philosophically so. This claim does not mean that works of popular culture are works of philosophy in the ordinary sense of the word. However, we can "treat philosophy as a success term to refer to works demanding imaginative engagement that results in the recognition... of a philosophical position, such that what is done in philosophy proper that induces a possible conclusion is done in another genre by means appropriate to its appreciation" (31). Given this understanding of philosophy, we can understand works of popular culture as vehicles of philosophy. Korsmeyer maintains that the TV series Angel conveys some of Simone de Beauvoir's ideas from one of her books. Korsmeyer's chapter also contains a delightful discussion of "the probable impossible" and "the possible improbable" in fiction. But... (shrink)

The main thesis of the paper is that change and time depend existentially on a specific property of being, described by the author as the Heraclitean unstability (i.e. a kind ofsusceptibility to non-existence). Change and time are, in substance, quite different aspects of being; but they are mutually connected: time cannot exist without occurence of changes; and vice versa. All these intuitions are logically reconstructed by the author.

A tale of two commissions -- Disciplining disorder -- Transparent fictions -- Conscientious objections -- A failed experiment -- Stem cells, interrupted.

This essay provides some historical background for, and considers the philosophical importance of, the collection of Anne Berkeley’s letters to Adam Gordon. The primary philosophical significance of the letters is her arguments against the so-called “free thinkers.” She discusses the philosophical view and the behavior of five prominent free-thinkers: Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume. Her discussion of Shaftesbury is particularly illuminating and can be read as a commentary on Alciphron III.13-14. Because the work of the other four were published (...) mainly after the Bishop’s death, the letters also show Anne ’s independent lifelong interest in matters theological, philosophical, and moral. (shrink)

Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh presents an intriguing interdisciplinary exploration of climate justice policy issues. He argues the important point that justice must be a key element of any climate regim...

In this essay, Emil Višňovský and Štefan Zolcer outline John Dewey's contribution to democratic theory as presented in his 1916 classic Democracy and Education. The authors begin with a review of the general context of Dewey's conception of democracy, and then focus on particular democratic ideas and concepts as presented in Democracy and Education. This analysis emphasizes not so much the technical elaboration of these ideas and concepts as their philosophical framework and the meanings of democracy for education and education (...) for democracy elaborated by Dewey. Apart from other aspects of Deweyan educational democracy, Višňovský and Zolcer focus on participation as one of its key characteristics, ultimately claiming that the notion of educational democracy Dewey developed in this work is participatory. (shrink)

Artykuł w całości nawiązuje do dotąd niepublikowanej korespondencji Tadeusza Czeżowskiego z emigracyjnym filozofem Zbigniewem Jordanem zachowanej w rękopisach w zasobach archiwalnych Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. Ich korespondencja trwała blisko 40 lat i jest dowodem, że nawet przymusowa powojenna emigracja nie zrywała więzów łączących filozofów związanych ze szkołą lwowsko-warszawską. Choć Czeżowski i Jordan należeli do dwóch różnych pokoleń tej szkoły, to wspólne zainteresowania naukowe i podobne zapatrywania polityczne spowodowały, że ich więź, choć tylko korespondencyjna, była w pewnym sensie wyjątkowa, bo (...) nawet ingerencje komunistycznej cenzury nie były w stanie wpłynąć na jej kształt. Dzięki niej Jordan wykazywał się doskonałą orientacją w dorobku samego Czeżowskiego jak i pozostałych przedstawicieli szkoły lwowsko-warszawskiej. To właśnie głównie dzięki tej korespondencji mógł pełnić rolę „ambasadora” polskiej filozofii w świecie i zarazem pierwszego historyka szkoły lwowsko-warszawskiej. Przypomnieniu roli obu filozofów w dziejach polskiej filozofii sprzyja zwłaszcza przypadająca w tym roku 40-ta rocznica śmierci Czeżowskiego oraz 110 rocznica urodzin Jordana. (shrink)

Lorenz von Stein ( 1815 - 1890 ) - wie Karl Marx in Preussen zeitlebens persona ingrata - sah in der sozialen Revolution keinen Ausweg aus dem strukturellen Burgerkrieg der industriellen Gesellschaft. Im Gegensatz zu Marx und Engels war Stein davon uberzeugt, dass die Ungleichheit der Menschen "nicht bloss das eigentliche Geheimnis, sondern auch die grosste Gewalt im menschlichen Leben (ist)". Damit machte er sich zu einem Apostaten des Junghegelianismus. Das auf diesen Pramissen aufbauende Werk verfolgt historisch und systematisch die (...) Entstehung der rationalen Staatsverwaltung sowie die Emanzipation des Staats aus feudal-hierarchischen Bindungen mit dem Ergebnis, im allgemeinen Stimmrecht und der allgemeinen Steuerpflicht das Fundament einer soliden Staatsfinanzierung und systematischen Finanzwissenschaft wie der individuellen Freiheit zu erkennen. Sein Werk nahm damit in vielerlei Hinsicht die Chancen und Grenzen der heute in Deutschland und Europa bestehenden Sozialstaaten vorweg. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Tagungsband beruht auf Vorträgen, die am 8./9. Juni 2007 auf dem 3. Kieler insolvenzrechtlichen Symposium der Hanns-Martin Schleyer-Stiftung in Kiel zu aktuellen Fragen des deutschen und internationalen Insolvenzrechts gehalten worden sind. Dabei wurden Fragen zur Auswahl des Insolvenzverwalters, zum Gläubigerschutz im österreichischen Insolvenzverfahren, zur aktuellen Rechtsprechung des BGH, zur Zwangsvollstreckungshandlung, zu neuen Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet des Eigenkapitalersatzrechts und zu Praxisproblemen des Insolvenzplans untersucht.

Von 1925 bis 1928 wurden im Berliner J. M. Spaeth-Verlag unter der Leitung von Hans Rosenkranz eine Reihe von Werken seinerzeit eher unbekannter, in der Retrospektive jedoch signifikanter Autoren der Zwischenkriegszeit publiziert. Der Beitrag thematisiert Rosenkranz als jungen Verleger und Bewunderer Stefan Zweigs. Er entwirft auf Grundlage der Archivüberlieferung einen neuen Blick auf die Geschichte des Unternehmens und kommentiert das damit verbundene literarische Programm: Welche wichtigen verlegerischen Projekte wurden in jener kurzen Zeit unternommen? Welche Rolle hatte Stefan Zweig (...) für das Zustandekommen einiger Titel und besonders in den letzten Wochen der Verlagsexistenz? Inwiefern lässt sich Programmgestaltung und ökonomische Entwicklung von J. M. Spaeth als paradigmatisch für jüdische Verlage in der Weimarer Republik verstehen? Dazu wird erstmals das Scheitern des Unternehmens während der „Bücherkrise“ Ende der 1920er Jahre aus den Quellen rekonstruiert. (shrink)