When words and phrases change their meaning, we might find ourselves less able to understand and communicate, and this can be harmful to us. I make sense of this by introducing the concept of hermeneutical disarmament. Hermeneutical disarmament is the process by which a person is rendered less able to understand or communicate experiences, ideas, and other phenomena as a result of semantic change to the linguistic resources that could previously have been deployed for these purposes. I defend (...) this concept by showing that semantic change can inflict cognitive and communicative harms and detail some of the forms that it can take. (shrink)

This article protests against the claim that philosophy as such is universal, because it often ambiguously speaks more of a universality of cultural dominance than of a properly philosophical universality including other philosophical modes of language and thought in the commitment to a universal search for truth. It stresses the need of a deliberate decision to de- Westernizing the philosophical forum, and illustrates how the Kyoto School does seriously take up this challenge facing, among others, the heavy iron bars of (...) language, translation intricacies, and Western traditional divide lines between philosophy and religion. (shrink)

(1990). How to safeguard the military‐strategic balance in the disarmament process? World Futures: Vol. 29, The Future of European Integration, pp. 188-195.

Military exigencies should not preclude planning for the economics of peace.

We are at a time when international law and the law of war are particularly important. The testing of nuclear weapons that is being used in the rhetoric surrounding threats of war is creating new fears and heightening current tensions. Richard Falk has for decades been an outspoken authority calling for nuclear disarmament and the enforcement of non-proliferation treaties. In this collection of essays, Falk examines the global threats to all humanity posed by nuclear weapons. He is not satisfied (...) with accepting arms control measures as a managerial stopgap to these threats and seeks no less than to move the world back from the nuclear precipice and towards denuclearization. Falk's essays reflect the wisdom and innovative thinking he has brought to his long career as a scholar and activist, as he reminds nuclear weapons states of their obligation under international law and moral imperative to seek nuclear disarmament. (shrink)