The paper argues that Bohr understood his correspondence principle, or at least an aspect of it expressed by the notion of rational generalization, as grounded in Hankel's principle of permanence.

The paper discusses Peano's defense and application of permanence of forms as a principle of mathematical practice. (Dedicated to the memory of Mic Detlefsen.).

This article aims to expound the principle of justice, as a fundamental value and as an immanent category of law, as well as one of the fundamental human rights, prescribed and guaranteed by a myriad of international instruments and documents. After a brief historical account, by focusing on Article 40 of the Magna Carta Libertatum, which states that: “To No One Will we Sell, To No One Will we refuse or delay, right or justice”, this article claims to show (...) the importance of incorporation of this principle in the provisions of the Magna Carta and its impact on the development of theory and legislation in the past and present. Moreover, the article intends to explore the extent of influence that the priciple of justice has on the functioning of the law in general. Since justice implicates the permanent and constant will to render each person his due, and this achieved through equality, it results that justice means being equal. In this context, the article will explore the concept of equality as a precondition of justice, as well as the conditions and modalities for its implementation. Having in mind that the principle of justice is closely linked to the principle of equity, because equity precedes justice, or more precisely, equity is considered a source of justice, this article seeks to articulate the essential distinctions between these two concepts by focusing on their methods, i.e. in their approach for putting the idea of equality into action. (shrink)

The Principles of Logic by Herbert Austin Aikins, first published in 1902, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the (...) original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it. (shrink)

The essence of the Architectonic Philosophy of Technique is the human self-embodiment in ontogenetic, evolutionary and permanent times (Mitterauer, 1989; 2009). These time conceptions may allow the interpretation of technical processes of self-embodiment and challenge the concept of the soul. The existence of the soul in timeless permanence is my fundamental argument that technical embodiments in robots can only be generated in ontogenetic and evolutionary time periods, but not in permanence. Admittedly, the concept of the soul does not (...) play a significant role in the creation of humanoid robots by engineers, but it is immersed in the subjective experience of each human person. I conceive the soul as an all comprising active principle which guarantees subjective existence and is felt as the destiny for a perfect everlasting life. Since the modeler of the robot is also endowed with this principle, he (she) is intending to implement his (her) reflection processes as programs into a robot brain, but it is not possible to fully implement the principle of human individuality in the sense of the soul. Otherwise, the creator of the humanoid robot would self-destruct his (her) human existence - a contradictio in se. -/- In the perspective of the present article I will discuss the following. First, my brain model is outlined focusing on subjectivity and qualitative mechanisms of brain function. Then, the elementary brain operations in ontogenetic and evolutionary time scales are discussed. Furthermore, the theory of Transphysics of self-embodiment of human subjectivity in human robots is proposed. This process generates a Third Nature of robot societies. In the final section “The soul in self-embodiment” I argue that humanoid robots existentially differ from their human creators, since robots can never be endowed with a soul in its metaphysical characteristics. (shrink)

Assisted migration (AM) is a translocation of the representatives of species to areas outside their natural habitats as a response to climate change. This article seeks to identify how customary norms and general principles of international environmental law could guide the development of regulation of AM maximizing the benefits of using AM and minimizing AM-related risks. Among the customary norms and principles of international environmental law discussed in the article and relevant to the regulation of AM are the permanent sovereignty (...) over natural resources, the principle of cooperation, the no-harm rule, the precautionary principle, the principles of prevention, due diligence, and obligation to conduct environmental impact assessment (EIA), the principles of integration and intergenerational equity, common but differentiated responsibilities, and the polluter pays principle, the principles of non-regression, progression, resilience, in dubio pro natura, the principle of ecological proportionality, and the principle of access to information, public participation, and access to justice in environmental matters (principle of good governance, environmental democracy). (shrink)

This article analyzes the application of creative visualization in the ethics of Ancient Greek Cynicism. The author concentrates on visualizations of 2 fundamental ethical principles (vicious chase of pleasures and virtuous radical temperance) and their relevance to modern society. The author comes to a conclusion that Cynics visualized the first principle through the image of a never-ending wheel of slavery and a concrete illness – dropsy, whereas the second one was visualized through the image of remedy for the above (...) mentioned disease and slavery as well as images of the result of taking that remedy, that is, permanent health, freedom and happiness. The both visualizations bear an evident creative character. The other important conclusion is that those visualizations are not relevant to contemporary society. Yet, being prototypes of relevant modern visualizations of hasty chase of pleasures and mild temperance, they retain significance to that society. (shrink)

Dr. Bergler has written eighteen books already on psychological/psychiatric themes. The present work, in which he refers back frequently to the earlier ones, is not very deep and a fairly easily read exposition of some of the author’s favourite themes. He is particularly attached to the notion that the human mind seeks to hurt itself, and takes pleasure in so doing. This is called ‘psychic masochism’, or the seeking of pleasure–in–displeasure. The difficulty with the terminology of analytic authors is that (...) sometimes they extend a technical term so widely that it ceases to be helpful. Maybe something like this has happened in this work. There seems to be no doubt about our psychic masochistic tendencies, or the pleasure–in–displeasure phenomenon. But what are we to make of the author’s assertion that the “basic neurosis” is psychic masochism based on oral regression, or that “psychic masochism takes first place among all possible inner defences”? The present work is unlikely to achieve a permanent place in analytic literature, but it does shed a helpful ray of light here and there in the darkness of the unconscious mind. (shrink)

A revised version of Nathaniel Chipman's Sketches of the Principles of Government (1793), this early treatise on the underlying principles of American government addresses civil laws and obligations, the social state, rights of property, sovereignty and political power. An important early contribution to American constitutional law, it is also interesting for its Federalist perspective on the evolutions of political institutions from Washington to Jackson.Nathaniel Chipman [1752-1843] was a leading Vermont Federalist who was instrumental in that state's admission to the Union. (...) He became Vermont's chief Justice and went on to represent Vermont in the U.S. Senate. He was also one of America's first significant legal writers.One of his books, the Reports and Dissertations (1793) is included in Warren's list of "the four general works on the Common Law... [of] permanent value in American Legal Literature.": Warren, A History of the American Bar 335-336. See Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 5752, Sabin, A Dictionary of Books Relating to America 12824, Dictionary of American Biography II:73-74. (shrink)

The Wadsworth series of Studies in Philosophical Criticism under the general editorship of Alexander Sesonske, presents collections of critical writings related to a single classical philosophical text for use in undergraduate teaching. Although others of Berkeley's writings are drawn upon by various authors, the selections in this volume are divided into five problem areas which are covered in the Principles. Many of the essays present strong points of view and should help involve students in the dialogue of philosophy. In some, (...) Berkeley serves chiefly as the occasion for the exercise of contemporary philosophical techniques. This accords with the intended function of the series to show the relevance of historical texts to current issues, openly acknowledging that each time teaches the philosophical past in its own terms. The section "Minds and Ideas" includes essays by S. A. Grave, Turbayne, and Monroe Beardsley. The section "Perception and Existence" reprints Mill on the Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, Hume on Personal Identity, Chisholm on Phenomenalism, and an essay by Konrad Marc-Wogau on the Esse-Est-Percipi principle. The third section is "Philosophy and Science." It has two essays, one by T. E. Jessop, the other, Popper's note on Berkeley as precursor of Mach and Einstein, which makes considerable use of De Motu. "Primary and Secondary Qualities" are treated in a selection from Thomas Reid, and an essay by Jonathan Bennett. The final section, "The Existence of God," consists of articles by Bennett and E. J. Furlong. There is a short general bibliography and a list of critical essays which includes many items from the 1950s and 1960s on each sectional topic.--M. B. M. (shrink)

The article “Prevention of corruption in public procurement: importance of general legal principles” examines the importance of general legal principles in the sphere of public purchases. The purpose of the work is to analyse the information on possible methods of prevention of and fight against corruption. The main result of the work is the conclusion that strict adherence to the general legal principles is one of the corruption-reducing factors. While combating corruption in the field of public procurement, general legal principles (...) should not be divided into primary and secondary principles, because they are all equally important and complement each other. Audit of the normative acts regulating public procurement shall be performed in the Member States of the European Union; positivisation of the following principles will effectively prevent manifestations of corruption in the area of public procurement: the principle of responsibility; principle of permanent composition of the procurement commission; the principle of in dubio pro reo; the principle of compensation; the principle of control; the principle of objectivity; the principle of completing the procurement procedure within a reasonable time period. (shrink)

The international law principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources posits that governments bear the sovereign rights to manage natural resources on behalf of citizens. That citizens have rights over natural resources at all however detaches from governance realities showcasing citizen marginalization. This necessitates revisiting the issue of what rights citizens actually have over natural resources. Qualitatively investigating this issue reveals rights of citizens over natural resources now embedded in the doctrine of peoples-based permanent sovereignty over natural resources (PPSNR). (...) However, this doctrine appears to be subject to international law limitations and might not be effective within domestic jurisdictions. Alternatively, PPSNR may be domestically driven by common ownership and environmental justice claims. These two drivers may be able to advance distributive justice rights of citizens to returns from natural resources exploitation within domestic jurisdictions. These rights could be actuated through rent distribution practices. This results in functional distributive justice. (shrink)

The paper follows the track of a previous paper “Natural cybernetics of time” in relation to history in a research of the ways to be mathematized regardless of being a descriptive humanitarian science withal investigating unique events and thus rejecting any repeatability. The pathway of classical experimental science to be mathematized gradually and smoothly by more and more relevant mathematical models seems to be inapplicable. Anyway quantum mechanics suggests another pathway for mathematization; considering the historical reality as dual or “complimentary” (...) to its model. The historical reality by itself can be seen as mathematical if one considers it in Hegel’s manner as a specific interpretation of the totality being in a permanent self-movement due to being just the totality, i.e. by means of the “speculative dialectics” of history, however realized as a theory both mathematical and empirical and thus falsifiable as by logical contradictions within itself as emprical discrepancies to facts. Not less, a Husserlian kind of “historical phenomenology” is possible along with Hegel’s historical dialectics sharing the postulate of the totality (and thus, that of transcendentalism). One would be to suggest the transcendental counterpart: an “eternal”, i.e. atemporal and aspatial history to the usual, descriptive temporal history, and equating the real course of history as with its alternative, actually happened branches of the regions of the world as with only imaginable, counterfactual histories. That universal and transcendental history is properly mathematical by itself, even in a neo-Pythagorean model. It is only represented on the temporal screen of the standard historiography as a discrete series of unique events. An analogy to the readings of the apparatus in quantum mechanics can be useful. Even more, that analogy is considered rigorously and logically as implied by the mathematical transcendental history and sharing with it the same quantity of information as an invariant to all possible alternative or counterfactual histories. One can involve the hypothetical external viewpoint to history (as if outside of history or from “God’s viewpoint to it), to which all alternative or counterfactual histories can be granted as a class of equivalence sharing the same information (i.e. the number choices, but realized in different sequence or adding redundant ones in each branch) being similar and even mathematically isomorphic to Feynman trajectories in quantum mechanics. Particularly, a fundamental law of mathematical history, the law of least choice of the real historical pathway is deducible from the same approach. Its counterpart in physics is the well-known and confirmed law of least action as far as the quantity of action corresponds equivocally to the quantity of information or that of number elementary historical choices. (shrink)

Can a present or future event bring about a past event? An answer to this question is demanded by many other interesting questions. Can anybody, even a god, do anything about what has already occurred? Should we plan for the past, as well as for the future? Can anybody precognise the future in a way quite different from normal prediction? Do the causal laws and the past jointly preclude free action? Does current physical theory entail a consistent version of backwards (...) causation? Recent articles on the problem of backwards causation have drawn attention to the importance of the principle of the fixity of the past: that the past is now fixed. It can be shown that the standard argument against backwards causation (the bilking experiment) simply builds in the assumption of past fixity. A fixed past deprives future events of past efficacy. This has naturally led to the speculation that by abandoning past fixity real power over the past may be possible.In this paper I show that in order to have an interesting thesis of backwards causation it is not enough simply to drop past fixity. More must go. In particular, to ensure what could be called future-to-past efficacy we must abandon two entrenched principles of permanence: the principle of permanent fixity, and the principle of permanent truth. The only alternative for backwards causal theorists is to embrace real contradictions in nature. (shrink)

The main concern of this paper is to study the dynamic of a predator–prey system with diffusion. It incorporates the Holling-type-II and a modified Leslie–Gower functional responses under Robin boundary conditions. More concretely, we study the dissipativeness of the system by using the comparison principle, and we derive a criteria for permanence and for predator extinction.

The paper traces the development and the role of syntactic reduction in Edmund Husserl’s early writings on mathematics and logic, especially on arithmetic. The notion has its origin in Hermann Hankel’s principle of permanence that Husserl set out to clarify. In Husserl’s early texts the emphasis of the reductions was meant to guarantee the consistency of the extended algorithm. Around the turn of the century Husserl uses the same idea in his conception of definiteness of what he calls (...) “mathematical manifolds.” The paper argues that the notion anticipates the notion of reduction in term rewrite theory in computer science. The role of the reduction for Husserl is, however, primarily epistemological: its purpose is to impart clarity to formal mathematics. (shrink)

This article aims to explore a theme of the metaphysica paupera from the reflections of the Friar Minor Luca Pacioli, highlighting their roots in the Neo-Platonic and Augustinian tradition, but also in some aspects of the Franciscan one. I will show, firstly, how in the early Franciscan environment the idea of minor beauty was progressively developed in relation to the form of life that places poverty at its centre. Secondly, I will outline how, in Bonaventure’s reflections, this idea, initially associated (...) with a practical and moral dimension, is reframed in a theological sense, in terms of evangelical perfection, and in a metaphysical sense, finding its full foundation in the idea of a proportional beauty that establishes a metaphysics of relationship. Finally, I will highlight how both ideas – that of a metaphysics of relationship and a Franciscan matrix – persist in Pacioli, in his mathematization of knowledge, capable of including minor beauty as the metaphysical principle of the world, as well as of all human activities and forms of knowledge. (shrink)

The principle of the child's right to an open future was first proposed by the legal philosopher Joel Feinberg and developed further by bioethicist Dena Davis. The principle holds that children possess a unique class of rights called rights in trust—rights that they cannot yet exercise, but which they will be able to exercise when they reach maturity. Parents should not, therefore, take actions that permanently foreclose on or pre-empt the future options of their children, but leave them (...) the greatest possible scope for exercising personal life choices in adulthood. Davis particularly applies the principle to genetic counselling, arguing that parents should not take deliberate steps to create physically abnormal children, and to religion, arguing that while parents are entitled to bring their children up in accordance with their own values, they are not entitled to inflict physical or mental harm, neither by omission nor commission. In this paper, I aim to elucidate the open future principle, and consider whether it is applicable to non-therapeutic circumcision of boys, whether performed for cultural/religious or for prophylactic/health reasons. I argue that the principle is highly applicable to non-therapeutic circumcision, and conclude that non-therapeutic circumcision would be a violation of the child's right to an open future, and thus objectionable from both an ethical and a human rights perspective. (shrink)

No statue raised in a public place should stand there indefinitely. Any such monument should have a set date when it is due to be replaced. I make three arguments to support this principle of non-permanence for public commemorative art. First, the opportunity cost of permanent statues is too high. States have a duty, grounded in their need for legitimacy, to support and cultivate democratic values. Public art is a powerful tool that is being drastically underemployed because existing (...) statues are already taking up so many prominent sites. Second, permanence undermines stability by unnecessarily raising the stakes of change and so exacerbating predictable tensions between social groups who ought to be able to respect one another as honourable civic partners. My proposal reduces the significance of replacing a monument by making removals a commonplace event. Third, we ought to do away with permanent statues as a means of increasing democratic control for both current and future generations over public spaces. Each generation inherits a more cluttered civic landscape which makes it progressively more difficult to shape it in accordance with their needs, preferences, and cultural vocabulary. Taken together, these arguments tip the balance of reasons decisively against the status quo. (shrink)

The article deals with the problems of inconsistency of Ukrainian translation education with the trends of the postmodern state of society and the advisability of introducing the achievements of the American system of training translators is substantiated. The article describes the organization of training masters in technical translation in the United States on the basis of a systematic analysis, in particular, the structure and content, forms and methods of teaching and learning masters in technical translation. Postmodern tendencies and peculiarities of (...) master's education in the USA are revealed and substantiated. The principles of permanent improvement of translation competence, profile and general cultural orientation are described; ensuring the full formation of the readiness of graduates of master's programs in technical translation for highly qualified, productive and creative professional activities; learning in a multicultural environment; application of the latest means of automated translation during training; certification of technical translators. For the reform of translation education in Ukraine, these trends are identified as key. The results of the study were obtained by applying a comparative typological and systems analysis, the method of extrapolating educational trends in the United States and Ukraine in relation to the postmodern context of society and its practical requirements for translation education. The practical significance of the article lies in borrowing the American experience of postmodern aspects of translation education, which can be useful to the countries of the former socialist camp and post-Soviet society. (shrink)

The present paper is devoted to a detailed presentation of a new Military Ethics doctrine of fighting terror. It is proposed as an extension of the classical Just War Theory, which has been meant to apply to ordinary international conflicts. Since the conditions of a fight against terror are essentially different from the conditions that are assumed to hold in the classical war (military) paradigm or in the law enforcement (police) paradigm, a third model is needed. The paper proposes such (...) a model in the form of principles that should govern the activity of a democratic state when faced with terror. Eleven principle are proposed. Two are on the level of the state, including the Principle of Self-Defense Duty. Six are related to military preventive acts against activities of terror, including new formulations of a Principle of Military Necessity, a Principle of Distinction, and a Principle of Military Proportionality. Principles of Low Probabilities, Time Span Considerations and Professional Understanding are also included. Finally, three principles that are related to consciousness-directed activities against terror are added: a Principle of Permanent Notice, a Principle of Compensation, and a Principle of Operational Deterrence. The exposition of the principles is accompanied by arguments about their moral justification. The doctrine has been developed on the background of the IDF fight against acts and activities of terror performed by Palestinian individuals and organizations. (shrink)

I respond to the comments by Larry Hickman and Thomas Alexander about my book, A Search for Unity in Diversity: The “Permanent Hegelian Deposit” in the Philosophy of John Dewey . I focus on four issues: 1) Precisely how do I prefer to characterize Dewey’s debt to Hegel? 2) How do I justify my admittedly controversial reading of Dewey’s World War I criticisms of Hegel? 3) Where do I believe Dewey found ideas in Hegel that led him to articulate the (...) historical fallacy? 4) How do I respond to Alexander’s concern that I have underestimated the influence of William James’s Principles of Psychology (1890) on Dewey? (shrink)

The doctrine that there is no permanent creator who superintends creation and takes care of his creatures accords quite well with each of the principles known as the four noble truths of Buddhism. The first truth, that distress is universal, is traditionally expounded in terms of the impermanence of all features of experience and in terms of the absence of genuine unity or personal identity in the multitude of physical and mental factors that constitute what we experience as a single (...) person. As we saw above, the principal Buddhist arguments against the existence of God focus on the impossibility of permanence and unity in the causal structure of the universe. The second noble truth, that distress is the outcome of one's own unrealistic aspirations, is traditionally seen as ruling out the erroneous view that distress is something inflicted upon creatures by a cosmic superintendent or by other circumstances completely beyond their control. The third noble truth, that distress can be eliminated by divesting oneself of all unrealistic aspirations, rules out the view that sentient beings, as powerless victims of a divine will, have no alternative to a life of constant frustration. And the fourth noble truth, that the best means of removing unrealistic desires is to follow a methodical course of self-discipline, counters the view that the road to happiness lies in obedience to divine will or in trying to manipulate the sentiments of a cosmic intelligence through prayer or ritual. (shrink)

A conservation principles tell us that some quantity, quality, or aspect remains constant through change. Such principles appear already in ancient and medieval natural philosophy. In one important strand of Greek cosmology, the rotatory motion of the celestial orbs is eternal and immutable. In optics, from at least the time of Euclid, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence when a ray of light is reflected. According to some versions of the medieval impetus theory of motion, (...) impetus remains in a projected body (and the associated motion persists) permanently unless the body is subject to outside interference. These examples could be multiplied. But it was in the seventeenth century that conservation principles began to play an absolutely central role in scientific theories. Each of Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Christiaan Huygens, Gottfried Leibniz, and Isaac Newton founded his approach to physics upon the principle of inertia—that unless interfered with a body will undergo uniform rectilinear motion. A multitude of other conservation principles gained currency during the seventeenth century—some still with us, some long ago left behind. Descartes provides an interesting example of an author who attempted to derive all of his physical principles from conservation laws (Principles of Philosophy, see especially articles 36 to 42 of Part II). Descartes believed that the principles of his physics could be derived from the immutability of God, supplemented only by very weak assumptions about the existence of change in the world. He claims, in fact, that we ought to postulate the strongest conservation laws consistent with such change. These include. (shrink)

Husserl’s notion of definiteness, i.e., completeness is crucial to understanding Husserl’s view of logic, and consequently several related philosophical views, such as his argument against psychologism, his notion of ideality, and his view of formal ontology. Initially Husserl developed the notion of definiteness to clarify Hermann Hankel’s ‘principle of permanence’. One of the first attempts at formulating definiteness can be found in the Philosophy of Arithmetic, where definiteness serves the purpose of the modern notion of ‘soundness’ and leads (...) Husserl to a ‘computational’ view of logic. Inspired by Gauss and Grassmann Husserl then undertakes a further investigation of theories of manifolds. When Husserl subsequently renounces psychologism and changes his view of logic, his idea of definiteness also develops. The notion of definiteness is discussed most extensively in the pair of lectures Husserl gave in front of the mathematical society in Göttingen (1901). A detailed analysis of the lectures, together with an elaboration of Husserl’s lectures on logic beginning in 1895, shows that Husserl meant by definiteness what is today called ‘categoricity’. In so doing Husserl was not doing anything particularly original; since Dedekind’s ‘Was sind und sollen die Zahlen’ (1888) the notion was ‘in the air’. It also characterizes Hilbert’s (1900) notion of completeness. In the end, Husserl’s view of definiteness is discussed in light of Gödel’s (1931) incompleteness results. (shrink)

Embraces the principle of homeostasis and the necessarily egocentric and essentially innate nature of the mechanisms for control of one's equilibrium. Employing H. Werner's concept of a unity that organisms create with their environments, interactive behaviors are described that demonstrate how all such behavior, even the interaction with oneself, is guided by that principle to create and preserve a unity. The interactive behaviors of humans that are described are seen to be animistic-like in that they appear to arbitrarily (...) assign motives to others who do not have those motives. The animistic behaviors are seen to be the means whereby humans become attached to others when they form relationships. These then develop in an individual into a complex fixed permanent unity. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Ravelingien et al1 argue that we should recategorise people in a permanent vegetative state as dead. Although the dilemma they describe is very real, their solution will not work. Other respondents to this paper have advanced several powerful arguments against the attempt to describe patients in a PVS as dead. Fortunately, the original argument contains sufficient resources for developing an alternative solution to this dilemma without having to radically change the current legal or social status of patients in a PVS. (...) In fact, patients in a PVS may be enrolled in xenotransplantation experiments, provided that their prior informed consent has been sought.The motivation for the original paper was to resolve an apparently intractable ethical conflict. On the one hand, there are powerful ethical and medical reasons for proceeding with research into the transplantation of non-human organs into human patients, whereas on the other, there are equally powerful ethical reasons for blocking whole-organ transplant experiments. These reasons are unusual in that special problems with xenotransplantation will block experiments that are permitted in other cases. In particular, the unquantifiable risk of a pandemic triggered by diseases such as porcine endogenous retrovirus crossing the species barrier will either block the research or expose subjects to the risk of indefinite quarantine . The authors also argue that the restrictions placed on transplant recipients and the possibility of long-term and intrusive monitoring, restrictions on sexual contacts and reproduction, and possible confinement represent excessive and ethically unjustifiable burdens. Over time, the recipients may wish to withdraw their consent, but the risks to public health would prevent them from doing so, thereby violating the basic principle that subjects of scientific and medical experiments should be able to revise or withdraw consent . …. (shrink)

This paper argues that whereas Mach understood thought economy as a principle of practical rationality, Husserl rejected it as a principle of theoretical rationality. The distinction is further supported by their correspondingly different readings of the principle of permanence.

This short article represents the first attempt to define a new core cultural value that will enable engaging the business sector in humankind’s mission to heal nature. First, I start with defining the problem of the current business culture and the extant thinking on how to solve environmental problems, which I called “the eco-deficit culture.” Then, I present a solution to this problem by formulating the “semiconducting principle” of monetary and environmental values exchange, which I believe can generate “an (...) eco-surplus business culture.” This work adds one new element, the eleventh cultural value, to the ten core values of progressive cultures postulated by Harrison (2000). (shrink)

In medical research, the ethical principle of respect for persons is operationalized into the process of informed consent. The consent tools should be contextualized and adapted to the different socio-cultural environment, especially when research crosses the traditional boundaries and reaches poor communities. We look at the challenges experienced in the malaria Quinact trial, conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and describe some lessons learned, related to the definition of acceptable representative, the role of independent witness and the impact (...) of socio-economic vulnerability. To ensure children's protection, consent is required by the parents or, in their absence, by a legally mandated representative. In our setting, children's responsibility is often entrusted permanently or temporarily to relatives or friends without a tribunal mandate. Hence, a notion of ‘culturally acceptable representative’ under supervision of the local Ethics Committee may be more suitable. To ensure protection of illiterate subjects, an independent witness is required to confirm that the consent was freely given. However, in low-literacy contexts, potential witnesses often don't have any previous relationship with patient and there may be power-unbalance in their relationship, rather than genuine dialogue. In poor communities, trial participation may be seen as an opportunity to secure access to healthcare. Poverty may also lead to ‘competition’ to access the research-related benefits, with a risk of disturbance at societal or household level. Adjusting consent procedures to sociocultural and socioeconomic realities is essential for fulfilling the underlying ethical principles. This requires a collaborative dialogue between researchers, regulators and ethics committees. (shrink)

Problem’s statement. This article is the result of a study of the historical context in which Isidore of Seville is inserted as an author, as the creator of a unique method, which became the result of his hard work. But in order to describe the method of Isidore of Seville, it is necessary to outline the range of problems that arise before us. Due to serious political and social upheavals in the Western Roman Empire, the preservation of education comes to (...) the fore. The need for “Christianization,” on the contrary, fades into the background. The authors of this period perceived the works of the church fathers and apologists as a legacy, as part of tradition. On the other hand, representatives of the intellectual culture of the era under consideration were part of the aristocracy of Roman (in the broad sense) origin and in this sense, like their predecessors, were bearers of ancient education and culture.The purpose of the study. Analyze the historical context in which the method of Isidore of Seville developed and to consider the influence of the method of Isidore of Seville on the development of knowledge and ideas in the dark ages.Methods. To achieve the goal of the study, a number of general and specific methods were used that contributed to the study of the creative heritage of Isidore of Seville: the etymological method used in the practice of Isidore for the classification and origin of sciences and arts; togoria method for understanding the symbolism of medieval language and judgments; historical-retrospective, contributing to the study of the contribution of Isidore of Seville to European education from the first monastic schools to the formation of universities; terminological selection – for the purpose of selecting, clarifying and modernizing the system of individual terms used in the educated circles of Visigothic Spain; reconstruction – to reproduce the events of the cultural and historical process on the Iberian Peninsula during the Visigothic Kingdom.Results. The reception of the ancient heritage in the works of the authors of this era – and these are primarily Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville – occurs in a different vein than that of the church fathers (Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine) and the German kings of the Carolingian revival. This question concerns a narrower issue that is discussed in the article, and it is connected with Isidore as the author. Isidore of Seville (560-636) is known primarily as an encyclopedist, indicating the wide coverage of topics in his works, on the other hand, in a certain way characterizes the level of these works.However, Isidore was not only and not so much an antiquarian – a collector of ancient knowledge. If we use the “intellectuals and power” scheme, then Isidore was, so to speak, an intellectual in power. He occupied the position of bishop of Seville (the episcopal rank was considered the best conclusion for the cursus honorum even in the 5th century, his authority significantly exceeded the authority of the constantly changing Visigothic kings of Spain. Isidore presided over the IV Council of Toledo (633), whose priests formulated an order with its significant the influence of the episcopate on public affairs.We can say that Isidore, through his works, in a certain sense constructed an ideology. (or what might be called ideology) and the educational program inextricably linked to it.Discussion. First, the era of the “Dark Ages” is a period of permanent military-political struggle between the local nobility and kings, the German kingdoms and Byzantium, which occurred as a result of the height of the Western Roman Empire. The second question is religion, since there were several religions in the territory of the Visigothic kingdom; Christianization of culture and education and, as a consequence, a contradiction with ancient philosophy. Hence the problem of preserving and transmitting knowledge. It was these reasons that complicated the creation of a high-quality educational system. Thirdly, Isidore was not a methodologist, but created a unique method, he was not a scientist, but wrote an encyclopedic work, was not a philosopher, but wrote about philosophy, distinguished it from dialectics, constructed a certain type of knowledge of the real world known to him, was not even a philologist, but he knew Visigothic, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.How did Bishop Isidore create an effective method? Fourth, after the authors of the “Golden Age” of patristics in the 6th–7th centuries. A new generation is emerging, which is faced with slightly different tasks. How does Isidore “construct” knowledge and what impact has his work had on society? Another important problem is the question of the scale and nature of Isidore’s influence on the intellectual culture of the Middle Ages. At the same time, special attention was paid to “etymologies, or principles,” its distribution, influence on the presentation of the seven liberal arts, etc. On the significance of Isidore’s method for medieval education.Conclusions. The method of Isidore of Seville was an important contribution to the preservation and transmission of knowledge in the Middle Ages and influenced the further development of encyclopedic knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction. The increasing mediation of human life by medicine necessarily raises the question of philosophical understanding the phenomenon of culture medicalization, since today the vector of growing powerful influence of medicine on forming sociocultural processes has clearly emerged. Along with the positive phenomena of the medicalization of life, the volume of “excessive” phenomena of its medicalization is growing. The purpose of the article is to clarify the philo- sophical foundations of the progressive medicaliza- tion of modern culture. Methods. The methodological (...) basis of the study is presented by dialectical, epistemological, axiologi- cal, philosophical-anthropological, and socio-phil- osophical approaches. The study is based on E. Cassirer’s transcendental philosophy, the phenom- enological transcendentalism of E. Husserl; V.S. Stepin’s concept about the system of informational social codes; and P.D. Tishchenko’s concept on the transformation of bio-power in modern culture. Scientific novelty of the research. The author outlines fundamental foundations of modern cul- ture medicalization as a result of mutually similar processes of transforming bio-power and the progress of biomedical sciences. Results. Unfolding, culture compensated for the bodily weakness of a person with the power of his technical inventions, but today they have surpassed the intellectual capabilities of their creator - the individual has to permanently adapt to the grow- ing volume of mass technogenic innovations. The historically formed human need to master the world through its “humanization” is suppressed, and, as a result, the problem of a modern indi- vidual’s request for self-realization through the creative transformation of the social environment is actualized. In this regard, one of the philosophi- cal and anthropological foundations of modern culture can be recognized as a technogenically determined desire of a person to transform his own corporeality, aimed at expanding the capabili- ties of a natural person. Biomedical sciences, as a result of biotechnological progress, turned out to be exactly the social and scientific sphere, which, building up practical activities within the framework of healthcare, considers the person to be both the subject and the object of the biosocial transforma- tion demanded by cultural evolution. Conclusions. The process of medicalization of culture occurs on the basis of two reciprocal fundamental processes: first, the strengthening of the principles of bio-power as “care for all forms of life”; secondly, the progress and technologization of scientific medicine, which in practice provides a socio-cultural demand for a modern prosperous individual. (shrink)

If politics is understood as a foundational and open-ended activity, a general problem that arises from such a framing concerns the question of how to sustain the possibility of continuous openings without converting action into permanence and closure. In this article, we approach this problematic by treating Hannah Arendt as an exemplary figure in the current of political thought that emphasizes the indeterminate nature of action. We focus more specifically on how Arendt addressed the question of sustaining action by (...) exploring the role of forgiveness, promises, divided power, and principles of action in her thought. While we show that the task of sustaining the indeterminacy of action partly remains an unresolvable paradox for Arendt, a general force underpinning the thought of Giorgio Agamben sheds new light on this paradox. Rather than affirming radical openness and pure _praxis_ as such, Agamben’s work helps accentuate the need of a certain contamination of _praxis_ by its own limit or apparent opposite. Importantly, this allows us to interpret Arendt and the paradoxical task of bestowing some degree of permanence to the open horizon of political action in a decidedly positive light: that _praxis_ implies a moment of impurity is the very force that sustains it without sacrificing its indeterminate nature. (shrink)

The article analyzes the socio-cultural and theoretical origins of the Russian philosophy of history. These origins determined the development of the philosophy of history as a special feld of philosophical knowledge. This process took place in the second half of the 19th century, a significant factor of which was the split within the cultural and spiritual unity of Russian society on the wave of Alexander II’s reforms associated with the abolition of serfdom. In this period the subject-matter of the philosophy (...) of history was defned. In the author’s opinion, the subject-matter of the philosophy of history includes: 1) the historical process in its universal human dimensions and in “past – present – future” movement, 2) the life of society in historically concrete forms of the organization of human community, 3) historical epistemology. The article shows why the philosophy of history, formed in this research feld, was established in the public consciousness and intellectual context as historiosophy, i.e. knowledge of spiritual senses, the beginning and end of history. This philosophical-historical paradigm excluded the oppositions, on the one hand, between philosophical knowledge and historical science and, on the other hand, between the philosophy of the history and social philosophy. As the main ideas of the Russian philosophy of history during that period, the author considers the idea of the integrity of historical existence as an “organic life” and the idea of the variability of the historical process, interpreted as the constant inclination of history to “permanent improvisation”. The author pays special attention to the development of the concepts of “transitional form” and “chaos,” which provide the acceleration of the progressive movement of history and the possibility of an active and responsible participation of an individual and masses in it. The attention to this problem introduced the spiritual and moral component into the ontological basis of the historical process as well as the concept of necessity and chance, freedom and violence, revolution and evolution into the conceptual apparatus of philosophical and historical knowledge. As a result, simultaneously with the metaphysical principles, the principles of concrete historical and axiological analysis were integrated into the methodology of the philosophy of history. This approach to the analysis of the historical process has preserved its heuristic potential to the present day. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 90-92 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice The Ongoing Creation of Loving Community: Christian Ritual and Ethics Jay T. RockNational Council of Churches of ChristAt the center of Christian practice is an ethical imperative: "This is my commandment," Jesus says; "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). This principle of active love lies at the heart of Christian (...) living.The argument about who is to be included in the circle of those to be loved, much alive in Jesus' own day, continues unabated. Christians do not agree whether the "sisters and brothers" whom one is instructed to love in various passages of the Christian canon refers only to the family of those in the Church, or to the family of all humankind. But there is certainly agreement that simply professing love is not enough: the love God has given is fully embraced only in being done.Given such a central emphasis on reconciling, active love, it is not surprising to find Christian ritual almost always directly connected to, and fully completed in, ethical behavior in the world. Even in the important ways in which Christian rites serve to open the individual and community to receive God, to become aware of the presence of the Ultimate Reality in their lives, one finds implicit links to acting in love. Christian ritual is itself incarnational: it continuously creates and recreates a community into which it incorporates individuals, and it reactualizes moments of sacred history in a way that opens them to the active participation and concrete action of the people.Some comments on the nature and significance of commemoration in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, may illustrate what I mean. These are the central liturgical celebrations of Christianity, one recalling the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River, the other, more complex, connected to the events of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem. They are commemorations of past historical events, the memory of which is preserved in the theology and practice of the community. But their celebration by the community makes these events existentially present, and their meanings real and accessible, in several ways.Through Baptism, individuals enter into the Jesus community, and participate in the life of Christ. The rite is understood to effect a permanent bond between the one baptized, and Jesus, in whose name she is baptized. The one being baptized is taken down into water, and there is understood to die and rise with Christ: the ritual "makes present again what God has done through Jesus" and brings the Christian into direct, existential relation to the "actual happening of salvation in Christ." 1 Through this connection, the person undergoes a transition from the ways of "death" and "darkness" into the way of "light."The Eucharistic celebration, similarly, provides believers a way of entering into the events of Jesus' death and resurrection. In it, Christians both take part in these [End Page 90] acts of redemption--his death and rising again--and also take into themselves the body and blood of Jesus. The sacrament is a central way in which Christians partake of/take part in the Body of Christ. The rite commemorates a past event, but more importantly, it brings to present life the person of Christ, and allows active participation in the ongoing, communal expression of God's self-giving in Christ.In these rituals, a particular kind of historical memory is at work: that of anamnesis, which the Lutheran liturgist Frank Senn suggests might be best approximated in English as "reactualization." 2 This kind of remembering involves not simply a return to past events, but the placing of the past into the present situation. Ethicist John Pawlikowski reminds us that this concept has roots in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the biblical sense of zakar: just as it is only in being remembered by God that we continue in existence, remembering in this sense "brings the past as close as possible so that it becomes... (shrink)

The article analyzes the system of legal regulation of the higher education in Lithuania with the purpose to determine the boundaries of exercising the discretionary powers of the executive institutions in the field of higher education. The article is made of two parts. Discretionary powers of the executive institutions in legislative field are discussed in the first part. The power of legislative discretion is described as a right to set the legal regulation by way of a subject who is granted (...) such discretionary power. Problems may arise in cases when the law granting such discretionary powers is too abstract or declarative. The main criteria in determining the boundaries of exercise of discretionary powers are the provisions of Constitution and laws, and constitutional law principles. The system of delegation of legislative powers in the field of regulation of the higher education in Lithuania is analyzed in the second part of the article. The permanent changes in administrative legal regulation of higher education and studies determined by a vast amount of subjects issuing post-legislative legal acts in this field, as well as rather tedious legal regulation which, in turn, calls for frequent changes in legal acts, raises doubts regarding a possibility to implement main principles of the studies, such as freedom of creation and scientific research or academic freedom and autonomy. (shrink)

In this essay, I will try to elaborate the fundamental postulates of transdifferential ontology, developed through the inscription of some basic concepts of poststructuralist philosophy within the realm of general system theory. In this manner, a system/being will be conceptualized as set of elements which is organized as a functional whole, whose goal is not to establish a homeostasis but to menage and organize disruptive forces of lack/surplus, that represents non-mediated kernel of any system. Therefore, any system is fundamentally grounded (...) on imbalance and radical incompleteness as inherent conditions of its possibility. Among different kind of systems, the complex self - organizing systems based on feedback loops are governed by the principle of syntropy and its transdifferential organization of reality. In order to explicate the syntropic movement of systems, the concept of signifier is expanded beyond the boundaries of language, and the process of writing, as a permanent invention of in-vent, is interpreted in the manner of never ending sublation of the system and subversion of the subject. The interconnection between the general system theory and poststructuralist philosophy will provide us with a conceptual apparatus which overcomes both linguistic and entropic limitations of above mentioned domains, in order to conceive, interpret, predict and govern processes of becoming on different levels of organization of systems. (shrink)

This article is focused on the theory of nature (ṭabʽ) advocated by some of the early Muʽtazilī scholars such as Muʻammar b. ʽAbbād al-Sulamī (d. 215/830), Abū Isḥāq al-Naẓẓām (d. 231/845), Abū ʽUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) and Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʽbī (d. 319/931) and its consequences about causality and miracle. The supporters of the ṭabʽ theory argue that Allah creates all beings with innate and permanent natures and these natures determine all movements and events in universe, and that necessary causal relationships (...) based on it prevail in the universe. But this understanding was criticized and rejected by the majority of Muslim theologians. The focal point of the criticism is God’s agency and His relationship with the universe. The acceptance of such necessary causality in the universe would make it impossible for God to intervene in nature, that is to create a miracle. So, miracles will be the work of the place where it occurs like all other acts when the concept of nature is accepted. In this case, it will not be possible to prove the omnipotence of God and belief in prophethood, which forms the basis of two principles of Islamic belief. This study deals with the dimensions of compulsory causality in the thought of naturalist Muslim theologians by addressing two questions: how the issue of miracle is grounded, and whether a divine intervention in nature of entities is possible. (shrink)

The letters in this volume continue to cover Ricardo's correspondence while a member of the House of Commons and provide subtle refinements and elaborations to his political economic thoughts. This volume includes a complete index to volumes 6 through 9, which contain Ricardo's correspondence. The index is cross-referenced by name and topic. Ricardo's letters remain a permanent legacy to the development of his many contributions to the political economy and a record of his endearing friendships.The entire series includes: Volume 1 (...) "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation"Volume 2 "Notes on Malthus's Principles of Political Economy"Volume 3 "Pamphlets and Papers 1809-1811 "Volume 4 "Pamphlets and Papers 1815-1823"Volume 5 "Speeches and Evidence"Volume 6 "Letters 1810-1815"Volume 7 "Letters 1816-1818"Volume 8 "Letters 1819-1821"Volume 9 "Letters 1821-1823"Volume 10 "Biographical Miscellany"Volume 11 "General Index". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE IMPACT OF VER/TATIS SPLENDOR ON CATHOLIC EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY AND SECONDARY LEVELS* CARDINAL PIO LAGHI Prefect of the Sacred Congregationfor Catholic Education INTRODUCTION T HE TOPIC which has been proposed to me, "The Impact of Veritatis Splendor on Catholic Education at the University and Secondary Levels,'' requires a note of clarification with regard to the word impact. When this Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II appeared, (...) it was received with much comment, both positive and negative, on the part of the press and the other media. This is one aspect of the topic proposed : to trace in a synthetic way a picture of the reactions which the document stirred. Such would certainly be an interesting study, but I would perhaps be led to traverse much terrain before arriving at the nucleus of what I feel is my duty to say to you. I shall limit myself, therefore, to commenting on two positive reactions appearing in Italian newspapers immediately after the publication of the Encyclical. The first was in the well-known Roman newspaper, Il Tempo, under the title, "An Act of Consistency in an Epoch of Doubt." It states: "If lighthouses had been moved every month, the sailors in the night would have seen the ships of history dashed against the rocks; and no voyager would have reached his homeland again if the North Star, within the Zodiac, had to obey vacillating positions of fashions and ideologies.... The papal document stirs discussions.... Nevertheless it is very much of current interest. While many ships finish on the rocks because they have * This paper was originally presented at the Forum on Catholic University Education at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, 3 November 1995. 1 2 CARDINAL PIO LAGHI sailed following fireflies instead of lighthouses and while the ruling classes have shipwrecked for having chosen compasses that lie, there is abroad a need to see the permanence of certain values recognized in the midst of all that changes, the necessity of an ethical nucleus linked to principles of the human person, honesty, freedom and responsibility." This is a positive reaction, then, which welcomes the Encyclical as a text which says things that have to be said, giving basic directions for a journey, and stating the things no one dares to speak but of which everyone knows the necessity in daily living. This is also the substance of another comment on the Encyclical that I think it would be useful to cite. Carlo Bo, a university professor and a well-known figure in Italian intellectual life, writes: "Modern culture no longer has objective criteria for distinguishing good from evil,'' and he adds, "John Paul II has fought against Communism in defense of freedom; now he criticizes Western culture, which makes of freedom an absolute value.... The exaltation of freedom leads to ethical relativism, against which the Pope raises his voice." Agreement and basic approval are transparent in these lines, but the title under which they appear is "A Call to Order." Immediately the image is evoked-negative to the sensitivities of our times-of a commander intent on imposing order on his soldiers. The heart of the problem perhaps, at least with regard to the teaching of moral theology in the Catholic context, is in the clear perception of the need for an unchanging point of reference, of a lighthouse for the voyage, and at the same time the fear of speaking of this need, of making it the subject of reflection, communication, and teaching. There is a kind of widespread fear which keeps us at a distance from the truth, from the permanent foundations of human acting, from the objective and the universal; a fear which is perhaps the principal cause on account of which so great a part of contemporary humanity risks dying of thirst while standing before a spring of cool water. In order not to appear authoritarian or negative, one keeps silent, does not speak, expresses oneself in a partial or even an erroneous way with regard to all that is most necessary for life. It would be difficult not to see in this a problem which is typically an educa- THE IMPACT OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR 3... (shrink)

The argument that a permanent vegetative state equates to death because it marks the death of the person is not a new one, but I wonder whether Ravelingien et al1 need to regard those in a PVS as dead to make a case for animal to human transplantation trials taking place in such people. It is not an argument likely to convince anyone who refuses to accept that only human persons have inherent value, dignity or a right to life, and (...) the arguments on both sides have been well rehearsed, with no sign of reconciliation. My own view is that people in a PVS are still alive, albeit with a poor quality of life. I see no objection in principle to the proposal that competent people can decide, in advance, to participate in research when they become incompetent. At the present time, it is generally accepted that an advance refusal of consent should be respected. Some controversy exists on whether someone can insist on treatment in advance, but in Ravelingien et al’s1 paper, what is being proposed is not that people can insist on becoming research participants, but rather that they can signal a willingness to become such a participant in the future. Indeed, this principle can be extended to competent people such as those with early …. (shrink)

The permanent struggle for optimisation can be seen as one of the most significant cultural principles of contemporary Western societies: the demand for improved performance and efficiency as well as the pursuit of self-improvement are con-sidered necessary in order to keep pace with an accelerated, competitive modern-ity. This affects not only work and education, but also family life, parent–child relationships and intimate relationships in respect to the body and the self, in regard to the public as well as the private (...) realm. Bringing together contributions from renowned scholars from the fields of sociology, psychology and psycho-analysis, this book explores the impacts of optimisation on culture and psyche, examining the contradictions and limitations of optimisation, in conjunction with the effects of social transformations on individuals and shifts in regard to the meaning of ‘pathology’ and ‘normality’. (shrink)

In this study, teleological judgments were examined as having a part of the boundless relationship of reason with the universal and unconditional, based on Kant's critical philosophy. To do this, firstly, the distinction between telos and skopos has been pointed out. The cognitive faculties of the subject as the source of finality in nature and the concepts of purposeless purposefulness were discussed. We emphasized that according to Kant's critical philosophy, the introduction of the concept of God as an internal (...) class='Hi'>principle to natural science would be characterized as false belief. This trespassing, which causes a narrative that goes beyond the limits of our knowledge, was discussed in the context of the processes of acquiring knowledge in Kant's philosophy. In this regard, according to Kant the nature of the transition from teleological judgments to theological judgments was investigated. At the beginning of the study, the relation of telos with infinity was discussed. Afterward, the idea of purposefulness, which organizes itself in nature and eliminates blind randomness, was emphasized. The basis of the teleological principle as the inner principle of natural science was analyzed. The possibility of placing the concept of God on this very ground was discussed. It was pointed out that the characteristics of universality and necessity that Kant attributed to purposefulness were not only based on the grounds of experience. At this point, it was stated that to achieve universality, it is necessary to base on an a priori principle at the same time. The possibility that this principle could be an intention (Alm. Absicht) or a final end (Alm. Endzweck) was discussed. We focused on the request of the reason, which is applied to the conditioned and the finite, to reach the unconditional. It was stated that for Kant, the reason for the transition from teleological judgments to theological judgments was the effort to see purposeful regularity in phenomena. It was pointed out that it is a necessary step of the mind to lead this regularity to a higher telos and even to a creator, to the first being. We emphasized that concerning Kant’s critical philosophy if the concept of God was placed on the ground of natural science and the purposefulness in nature would be explained with this, and this method was used to prove the existence of God that would create an internal and non-permanent narrative. It was discussed whether this claim was an illusion. At this point, the task of the imagination performed with telos was examined. Evaluations about the concept of telos as the common ground of the subjective and the universal were included. As a result, it has been investigated how the search for the constant existing in the human mind can lead him to the existence of a God in the chain of causality. (shrink)

Current management of people with prolonged disorders of consciousness is failing patients, families and society. The causes include a general lack of concern, knowledge and expertise; a legal and professional framework which impedes timely and appropriate decision-making and/or enactment of the decision; and the exclusive focus on the patient, with no legitimate means to consider the broader consequences of healthcare decisions. This article argues that a clinical pathway based on the principles of the English Mental Capacity Act 2005 and using (...) time-limited treatment trials could greatly improve patient management and reduce stress on families. There needs to be early and continuing use of formal best interests meetings, starting between 7 and 21 days after onset of unconsciousness. The treatment options need to evolve as the clinical state and prognosis becomes more certain. A formal discussion of treatment withdrawal should occur when the upper bound of predicted recovery falls below a level the patient would have considered acceptable, and it should always be discussed when the condition is considered permanent. Any decision to stop treatment should be contingent on a formal second opinion from an independent expert who should review the clinical situation and expected prognosis, but not the best interests decision. The article also asks how, if at all, the adverse effects on the family and the resource implications of long-term care of people left in a prolonged state of unconsciousness should be incorporated in the process. (shrink)

The skills of thinking, reading conceptions and reading practice (literacy levels) found in textbook activities for the sixth year of Primary Education in Social Sciences and Spanish Language in Spain are analyzed in this paper. A mixed methodology is used to triangulate the data, integrating the critical analysis of discourse and two types of statistical analysis: descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential (χ 2, ANOVA, and the Mann-Whitney U Test). The results inform us of both the permanence and the (...) strengthening of the design of an activity oriented toward the development of traditional conceptions of linguistic-cognitive reading. In the framework of education for global citizenship, the conclusion is the need for student reading practices that begin with the principles of critical literacy directed at the acquisition of social, critical, and creative thinking skills. (shrink)

I argue that the vulgar belief in continued and distinct existences, as Hume describes it in Treatise 1.4.2, “Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses,” is defeasibly justified. Prior to and apart from the rebutting defeater that Hume brings forward as an argument from perceptual relativity in paragraphs 44 and 45, the vulgar belief is perfectly in order, philosophically speaking. For Hume, a belief is defeasibly justified if and only if it is produced by permanent, irresistible, and universal principles of (...) the imagination. The vulgar belief meets these conditions and thus is defeasibly justified—even though it suffers eventual defeat. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to consider how the dominant moral theories can be applied to the discourse of disaster situations. In specific times, specific values take priority. Therefore, this article will consider how moral theory deals with time. Kant’s moral philosophy has influenced ethics enormously, but rejects the idea of a temporal dimension in ethics; consequently, modern ethics has not devoted sufficient attention to the temporal dimension. Nonetheless, Kantian ethics established the basic principles of respect for human beings (...) as ends in themselves, and for autonomy of rational beings; thus it cannot be ignored. In political decision-making, simply having good intentions does not suffice; they must be accompanied by responsibility. Both the ethics of consequentialism and virtue ethics (the virtue of wisdom) deal with responsibility for the future. Hans Jonas developed a concept of responsibility concerned particularly with the risks associated with new technologies and the ethical requirement to avoid disasters. “Uncertainty may be our permanent fate - which has moral consequences” (Jonas). Public policy should be precautionary. The ethics of disaster preparation planning is distinct from the ethics of disaster response planning. (shrink)

In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Bernard Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Jacques Derrida, prove that (...) terms such as disruption, dissociation, disfunction, disjunctions and dispersion not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette, 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Park de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Peter Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus a thesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the stratus of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. (shrink)