In the discussion of global ethics, philosophical ethics risks losing its distinct theoretical horizons. This predicament arises primarily from philosophy's failure to anchor its own object and to provide a rational basis for global justice from within its current confined theoretical paradigm. Against this background, this paper will first prioritize global co-existence as the primary concern of global ethics, then propose ontological co-existence justice as its foundational principle, and finally argue that the normative validity of co-existence justice is predicated on (...) the nations fulfilling the critical requirements of modern civilization, namely, the advancement of individual freedom. (shrink)

This paper sketches the antilogism of Christine Ladd-Franklin and historical advancement about antilogism, mainly constructs an axiomatic system Atl based on first-order logic with equality and the wholly-exclusion and not-wholly-exclusion relations abstracted from the algebra of Ladd-Franklin, with soundness and completeness of Atl proved, providing a simple and convenient tool on syllogistic reasoning. Atl depicts the empty class and the whole class differently from normal set theories, e.g. ZFC, revealing another perspective on sets and set theories. Two series of Dotterer (...) and the theorem proved by Russinoff are re-characterized in antilogistic formulas corresponding to the square of opposition and twenty-four moods of syllogism. Then the restricted equivalence between two forms of antilogism and minimal inconsistency is built up, implying the internal connection between antilogisms and minimal inconsistency and leaving two related conjectures not proved. Besides, this paper provides a new explanation for the reason why contrariety, subcontrariety, and subalternation and the nine special moods require the non-empty assumption. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

Vādanyāya is one of the representative works of Dharmakīrti. It is concerned with debate logic and deals with win-or-lose reasoning rules in the broad sense of logic. In this paper, we will concentrate our discussion on Dharmakīrti’s theory of nigrahasthāna (fault) in his debate logic, a key issue in Vādanyāya. First, we point out that the justification of three logical reasons as proof conditions of debate constitutes the rational point of departure for Dharmakīrti’s debate logic. Second, we analyze the differences (...) between Dharmakīrti’s and the Naiyāyika’s notion of debate and point out that Dharmakīrti’s ‘debate’ involves two parties (the disputant and the opponent) attempting to rationally refute the other’s opinion to persuade the other to change their wrong ideas. Last, based on the discussion of Dharmakīrti’s concept of debate logic, we identify seven types of nigrahasthāna in Vādanyāya with regard to the two parties of a debate (the disputant and the opponent). (shrink)

During the Communist regime, after Poland was officially proclaimed the People’s Republic of Poland, the aim of the Polish Communist government was to control all aspects of society. Communist ideals were enforced in books and other publications; censorship was introduced on all published materials. This paper aims to present the situation of media in People’s Poland, as well as to provide a background and description of Polish censorship. Additionally, this paper will exposit and examine the socio-political role (...) of Tygodnik Powszechny in Polish society. As TP is a Catholic weekly, an outline of the unique socio-political role of the Polish Roman Catholic Church in communist Poland will accompany the above analysis. This paper is based on the research conducted by the author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree written and defended at the Central European University in Budapest in 2012. (shrink)

Numerous scholars from different fields ranging from history, political science, ethnic and cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology have discussed ethnic and racial identity issues in the People’s Republic of China. Most have noted that there are competing narratives regarding the conceptions of race and ethnicity. Much of the scholarship has been based on social constructivist orientations. This essay is directed towards a merger between social constructivist and cognitive science approaches on essentialism that may open the doors for further research (...) and investigation of this important topic. (shrink)

This book tells an overlooked story in the history of the will, a contested idea in both politics and philosophy of mind. For it is Cicero, statesman and philosopher, who gives shape to the notion of will as it would become in Western thought and who invents the idea of 'the will of the people'. In a single word – voluntas – he brings Roman law in contact with Greek ideas, chief among them Plato's claim that a rational elite must (...) rule. When the republic falls to Caesarism, Cicero turns his political argument inward: will is a force to win the virtue in the soul that was lost on the battlefield, the marker of inner freedom in an unfree age. Though his vision of a free republic failed in his time, Cicero's ideal of rational elitism has shaped and fractured the modern world – and Ciceronian creativity may yet save it. (shrink)

Joaquin Segura. Untitled (fig. 40) . 2007 continent. 1.2 (2011): 117-124. The interview that follows is a dialogue between artist and gallerist with the intent of unearthing the artist’s working strategies for a general public. Joaquin Segura is at once an anomaly in Mexico’s contemporary art scene at the same time as he is one of the most emblematic representatives of a larger shift toward a post-national identity among its youngest generation of artists. If Mexico looks increasingly like a foreclosed (...) home burning to the ground, Segura could likely be the one walking away, charred matchstick between thumb and forefinger and shit-eating grin on his face. His corrosive attacks on institutions, ideologies, and power reflect a deep general distrust of authority, increasingly evident within the work of younger Mexican artists. It is perhaps most directly the result of President Calderon’s deeply unpopular war against the cartels but no doubt equally the product of decades upon decades of rampant corruption and errant policy within Mexico. Brett W Schultz (BWS): A recurring—if not dominant—theme within your current work and investigation explores ideological extremism in reaction to some perceived political and economic disenfranchisement, especially that espoused and practiced by right-wing groups in United States. That's exactly why I thought of you when I was approached to contribute a piece to an issue on the subject of the moraine—taken metaphorically here to signify a certain set of beliefs that have resurfaced within mainstream American culture in the wake of a probably over-exaggerated political sea-change, marked by Obama's election. You're a Mexican artist who now lives and works in Guadalajara, far from the border cities where such concerns would seem more likely to be relevant to a contemporary artist; of course, you're even farther from the culture that birthed this nature of extremism. What interests you so intensely about this movement, if we can call it that? Joaquin Segura (JS): I think there are several seminal points that you touch on in this particular question. There's a very specific set of interests that make me address the socio-political issues I've been dissecting through my practice in the last few years. First of all, I don't really consider myself a 'mexican' artist. As I've made clear in the past, I don't really believe in the notion of 'identity' or the idea of 'nation', which I find totally laughable and heartwarmingly passé. I'm convinced that these are totally outdated models of understanding our differences and similarities, expanding our already immense and irreconcilable cultural abysses instead of bringing them together, thus resulting in their total dispersion among the complex and extremely arbitrary weaving of contemporary social nucleii. Pretty much a frankly bad joke, if I may say so. The fact that I live and work in Mexico is a completely random geographical and temporal factor, which of course affects what I think and what I do, but I've chosen not to be limited by this specific circumstance. In the past, while working abroad, I've taken advantage of this preconception of Mexico—to be more exact, pretty much all of Latin America—as one of the last barbaric bastions of western civilization. Totally amusing, if you ask me about it. I consider my practice to be, among other things, a gonzo strategy of deceit: there are quite a few roles you can adopt in this approach that may actually reveal themselves to be a privileged vantage point. In my experience, the gentle savage is one of the most effective ones to establish my standing position. Thus, I'm a mexican artist if I need it to prove my point. If it's not necessary in a specific circumstance, I'm not. Quite simple, I think. Said in other words, it's just an ace I can play to win a particular match. It has worked so far, at least for me. L: Hey, America… , 2009. R: The Inaugural Address , 2009. I am interested in the nature of power and the rise and fall of totalitarian ideological and political apparatuses nowadays. But I guess, going even further, I'm essentially fascinated by the fissures and contradictions that have made these structures spectacularly crumble to the ground. I do believe extreme ideologies have played a crucial role in the globalization of socio-political crisis. In the end, our world is nothing more than a fading monument to all things gone wrong—the inspiring triumph of failure, in every sense. I see this as an exciting parable. And of course, it is an undeniable fact that the US, through their influence in world economy, international policies and general attitude towards the rest of the planet is the largest structure waiting to collapse. I think we are all secretly awaiting that moment of splendor, even americans. It'll be disastrous and as nasty as it can get, but it will also be liberating and incredibly inspirational. Not just because it’s the US but because it'll prove that absolutely everything is susceptible to fall. And not only that, most importantly, it would confirm that radical change may actually be possible and not just one more of the unfulfilled promises modernity has left us to struggle with on our own. BWS: I want to talk first about two of your works in particular: Hey, America... and The Inaugural Address . I feel like your more recent work has a subtle —or even hidden—sinisterness, but these two works are perfect examples of how brutally confrontational your earlier work has been. When we showed Hey, America... at Mexico City's Zona Maco art fair in 2010, there were at least a couple visitors to our stand who were absolutely ready to punch me in my gringo face for having done so. Certainly the shock value of these works is crucial to their central ideas, but can you tell me more about your intentions and how these works relate to your general oeuvre? JS: So funny. Perhaps we do deserve to be punched in the face. I think that's what I'm sometimes looking for, but I hardly ever get it. I do think of such works as some sort of logical trap, a somewhat perverse ambush waiting for someone to walk into head-on. I think what I tried to do with those two specific works, as well as some other past projects, is just emphasize issues or themes that do disturb or make me uneasy and restless. I consider my essential intention a need to make clear that we do not have to look the other way, ignore or forget. We must address, understand and solve these manifestations of senseless violence and absurdity because if we don't confront them this way, they'll end up consuming us. In other words, I do consider these works as a personal need of coming to terms with the nonsense of the world we all are living in. I don't particularly consider myself to be someone with a clear set of beliefs. Perhaps my only certainty would be that everything is there to be denied, demolished and obliterated—even my supposed unquestionability of that particular 'dogma.' My practice is a reflection of that paradox, and I do think that's how these two pieces relate to a wider body of work. Every democratic system and so-called developed contemporary society is deeply flawed on the inside, and that is because each has swept things under the rug. Of course, there's tolerance, good will and eagerness to make a difference but there's also hatred, pain and fear lingering all around. We must learn to relate to both sides of the spectrum. In a way, I approach the themes behind these particular works in what I think to be a non-biased, somewhat 'neutral' way. I do think there's an encryption process going on in the way I work, some sort of formal refinement of this somewhat outrageous content. A digest of infamy, if we can refer to it that way. It is up to the individual experiencing the work to decide which way these pieces lean. They can easily be seen from both positions and I'm ok with that. If you look closely at these works, there's nothing that establishes an unrelenting position—neither support nor rejection. I don't want my personal political views to directly set an agenda for the spectator as that’s essentially propaganda, which is one of the things I absolutely despise. To sum it up, I strive for the spectator to complete the piece in that sense. The work then becomes a reflection of his or her own contradictions, a playground of the mind. I'm interested in achieving a deadpan and deadlock state in the observer. So, in a way, those visitors threatening to beat the shit out of you unconsciously became that particular issue the work is alluding to. Just blind and senseless reaction to god knows what people feel must be defended, the overwhelming virtue of ambiguity. Beautiful. Perhaps you can also think of my practice as a uber-sophisticated and snobbish version of Punk'd. And you wouldn't be far from what I'm trying to convey. Untitled (Disturbance Scenarios #2) . 2010. BWS: To me, an important transitional marker in the overall trajectory of your work is the series, Disturbance Scenarios , which evokes a similar generalized state of panic, paranoia, and impending doom through its incorporation of sensationalist newspaper headlines, yet also suggests this slyly mysterious meta-narrative via the context in which the newspaper itself is placed. How did you arrive at this series and why did you choose photorealistic painting as the medium for it? JS: I consider this series to be a by-product of the process I follow when making work. I spend an important part of my time just doing research, going through documentation and accumulating visual or historical references for the themes or episodes I'm interested in, in that particular moment. These are, of course, valuable assets that connect among themselves in a mysterious and almost undetectable manner, sometimes a few years between one and the other. I've employed similar production strategies in the past, in ongoing series like Random Moments of Urban Decay , in which I document what I consider to be physical traces of ethnic, religious or ideological violence in the form of text graffiti, invisibly scattered in different cities of the world, mostly in the US. Disturbance Scenarios was started in early 2010, following a particularly intense period of traveling here and there that lasted for most of the year. I've always felt compelled by text, as I find quite intriguing the idea of how words can create equally intense evocations of what I call a mental panorama of uneasiness than those produced by aesthetically-charged imagery; of course, if handled right. I have a close relationship to print media—due both to my academic background and to my attraction to its ubiquity and almost unlimited influence, which in the end, is nothing else but power—so I found myself with a growing archive of newspaper headlines snapshots from cities like Melbourne, Auckland, London, and LA. Going through them, I noticed that they had in common a very specific thematic slant: they were all about some sort of conflict: energy crisis, political unrest, local episodes of domestic violence, you name it. So as you very well put it, I felt they all connected through this feeling of anxiety and anguish and I decided to start thinking of them as a body of work. Basically, I felt an interest in creating what I think of as my personal fragmented prefigurements of the end of civilization. There were few elements on the shots that could give away its actual location, geographically speaking, and I liked that. I find this sensation of vagueness and uncertainty quite alluring. The more subtle, the more perverse. The formal resolution of the series—as photo-realistic painting—is linked to my intention of creating distance between me as the artist and the themes I work with. I rarely execute my own work, and that is more a personal choice as I'm more interested in the ideas I mingle with than in the actual outcome of that process, understood as an "art-object" with certain market value. I did some tests with light-jet prints of those snapshots and I found them devoid of that nightmarish, disturbing indistinctness that I felt was so important for them to be able to project the turmoil I experienced upon encountering them and in conceiving of them as a series. So I thought that photorealistic painting would be an interesting resource to play with, as I hardly had worked with that medium before because of my lenient animosity toward painters and their craft. So they were executed like that and I think it turned out to be just right. Homemade (Napalm #2) . 2010. BWS: Though Disturbance Scenarios remains ongoing, it's an interesting contrast to another series of yours, Homemade, which are these beautifully banal photographs of the ingredients used to make improvised explosives. Whereas Disturbance Scenarios still confronts the viewer aggressively with its visual emphasis on loaded texts, in Homemade , you've dropped the surface-level bravado entirely. They're pieces that require explanation to someone not already versed in the fine art of amateur explosive-making. You weren't known for subtlety in your past work; why this change in direction? JS: I'm personally convinced that these are just two angles of the same conceptual preoccupation. I mentioned before my obsession with the idea of encryption. I'm quite enticed by how these processes of translation can politically and semantically alter and deviate purportedly subversive materials such as the ones these works allude to. I do think subversion is futile. I was really troubled by that thought for some time, but I think now I understand that it's not really that important. What is really significant is to elaborate on these alternate views, to envision and refine possible escape routes. It doesn't really matter if they go nowhere, but that is because nothing really matters. A "mute" artwork is a notion that captivates me. When you look at the works you mention, you know there's something off, but it's not fully clear how and why that is. I rely on that insecurity—on that moment of hesitation. And that can also be achieved through an approach like the one I'm now interested in. Let's just call it a smoke screen, a surrogate ruse to get to the same point: to talk about impotence and defeat in contemporary life. The notion that readily accessible information is actually a weapon is a double-edged fallacy: sure, you can make use of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, but that doesn't set you free because freedom is impossible. Still, that doesn't mean you can't blow up stuff during the process, metaphorically or not. I didn't understand the nature of subtlety before. I used to think that you needed to be loud and manifest anger and unconformity in the most aggressive manner possible. Then I finally realized that you can actually permeate and rarify a battleground—because after all, this is low-intensity war—if you actually aim at silently building up the contradictions and making the symbolic value of ideas and acts clash within themselves. Or perhaps it is that I am just getting old. I guess I used to be an angry kid until recently. Now I think of myself as a disenchanted post-teenager, and of course that reflects in my work and my approach to art-making. Kind of a rite of passage and I laugh at it because, overall, it has been overwhelmingly fun. And that doesn't mean that I'm not ready to stick it in someone or something's face again if I feel like it. BWS: You're now taking the subtlety of the Homemade series even further with your newest series, Definitive Reader For a Botched Revolution , in which you photograph a series of politically-charged books side-on, negating their content entirely—essentially reducing them to purely aesthetic objects in which the subject matter is only revealed in the title of the work. Can you talk about the ideas behind this series? Furthermore, is your recent interest in this idea of the "botched revolution" an indication of a general attitudinal or philosophical shift you've since adopted? JS: This new series of works is the logical outcome of a brief period I went through. Probably the last couple years, in which due to a number of circumstances that don't really have to do with my art-making, I was forced to renegotiate my ideas, my beliefs and practically everything that surrounds me. It was quite distressful and turbulent, but in the end, I think it was also almost epiphanic. I came to terms with myself and now I'm calm and serene. That is, of course, my personal take on it but I mention it because I do think it's important to address this shift you mention. The idea of an artwork as a container for latent revelations enthralls me quite a bit. That's how I see these particular works: art as an incendiary agent. It's up to the artist and the spectator to do whatever they please with it. I think the detachment and almost surgical cleanliness from the Definitive Reader series is also my take at poking fun of the way some art is totally innocuous and uncompromising. These images may be pleasing to the eye, but there's something twisted and rotten within them, well hidden beneath. You'll either see it or not, but without a doubt, it will not cancel its presence. This series is intrinsically linked to Homemade . I'm pretty much horsing around with similar ideas and statements here. And well, yes, I do think any revolution is a botched one. There's nothing too heavy about their own downfall. Decay and breakdown are here and will not go away. Perhaps we must learn to embrace them in one way or another, for our own sake. L: Untitled (T.A.Z.). R: Untitled (United States Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects) . 2011. BWS: Finally, let's discuss the near future. You've got an upcoming solo show at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [SAPS] in Mexico City this summer. What can we expect from that? What else do you have planned? JS: I'll go and get seafood as soon as I'm done with this interview. It's pretty good here in Guadalajara. That's my top priority at this very moment. About my solo project at SAPS, it's due to open in late July. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm still closely working with the curator on the general feel for the show but I can say that it'll be more of a revision of past works that have not been shown in Mexico City except for a couple pieces. It definitely won't be a showcase for new projects, although we may include one or two previously unseen works. What you can expect is a rereading of what I've been working on during the past few years. In a way, that's exciting to me because for some reason I don't really care about, I'm not that active in Mexico City even though that's where I lived and work for years. I've hardly shown there after my solo project at Yautepec in February of 2010. It'll be nice to see how it all comes together and I'm more thrilled about it because I totally love the space and I think they're doing an excellent job with their programming and its direction. And in a certain way it feels like going back home. About everything else, I need a period to reflect and fully understand what I've been thinking and working on. I've got a few group shows here and there: New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne are the ones happening soon. I will present my censored project Untitled ( Gringo Loco ) as part of the programming of the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, two years after being escorted at gunpoint from the installation site by police sent by the extreme right-wing mayor of the city, which I found pretty amusing for an otherwise typical Saturday afternoon. I'm also involved in a couple "curatorial" projects. In my case, "curatorial" means that I help put together stuff I like and I'm interested in. One of them will open in late September of 2011 at Arena Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, and I will work with three of whom I consider to be some of the best artists in a lively and active scene such as the one here in Guadalajara. But most importantly, I've been doing heavy research so there are also a number of projects that I've yet to finalize. That'll be my main focus during the rest of the year, even though I really enjoy procrastination. There'll be time for that later. Or maybe not. We'll see. About Joaquin Segura The action, installation, intervention and photographic work of Joaquin Segura (b. Mexico City, 1980) has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some spaces that have featured his work include La Panaderia, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Centro de la Imagen and Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City; El Museo del Barrio and apexart, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and Palace Adria in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2008 and 2009, Segura was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY and at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. He is represented YAUTEPEC in Mexico City and by Arena Mexico Arte Contemporáneo in Guadalajara. Further Reading Joaquin Segura’s website YAUTEPEC artist page for Joaquin Segura Capps, Kriston. “ID-ENTITY: Washington, DC.” ART PAPERS . 2009. (shrink)

Giovanni Antonio Ranza’s Italian newspaper Monitore italiano politico e letterario is an ideal case for understanding the diffusion of revolutionary ideas not as a circulation or a transfer, but as an entanglement, through which revolutionary values grow in the process of their own reinterpretation and application onto the pragmatism of cultural and political struggle. Published from January to June 1793 in Nice, this periodical was conceived as a tool to explain the developments of the French Revolution and to radicalize the (...) Italian people. Translating many of the newest and most radical documents produced by the constitutional debates and military decrees in France, Ranza helped to shape a mature political understanding of the Italian democratic radicalism, which would bloom after the Napoleonic campaign of 1796–1797. (shrink)

This paper analyzes how cultural diversity in Argentina is calling into question modern political concepts like republic, nation or democracy. The phenomenon of population movements, the demand for recognition of indigenous people's rights, or the conflicts arising from claims to regions' right to life and identity - as in the case of the town of Gualeguaychú in Argentina - challenge the logic of the nation-state and its sovereignty as well as the republican principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. The (...) author examines how far the representation of the Argentinean republic at the time of its foundation included a standardizing vision of diversity, and how the legacy of this representation brought about an ambivalence between a universalist wish to take part in the progress of humanity and the reality of an exclusive democracy that valued one culture over others. It studies the narrative of national identity and attempts to describe how, proceeding from this narrative, the opposition between civilization and barbarity affects the way Latin Americans see the great challenges presented by the future of democracy, and by the recognition of the plurality of cultural allegiances. (shrink)

The study compares the changes in the theory of Marxism that took place in Europe (in the form of neo-Marxism and its movements, in particular the Frankfurt School) and the Sinicized version of Marxism. The study also examines how Sinicized Marxism was reflected in the political discourse and political philosophy of modern China (People’s Republic of China) and is reflected in social policy in the country. Studying the influence of socio-economic changes and the history of the people on ideological (...) changes allows us to identify several principles of Sinicized Marxism, which on an ongoing basis determine social policy and foreign relations. This is, first, etatism and the dominance of state interests over private ones, which limits human rights and national self-determination, but preserves the integrity and stability of the state, which protects the interests of the people. (shrink)

Introduction. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the necessity to study financial phenomena and processes in order to understand the economic essence of public finance in the life of society. The strategic imperative for the formation of public finance is the development of an appropriate provision for its implementation, adequate to the complex and changeable circumstances of the territory development. The main purpose of the study is to identify the features of performing the functions of public finance (...) for regions with a specific mode of operating. Methods. When solving the tasks, the author uses general logical methods: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy; empirical level methods: observation, description, measurement, modeling, as well as private and special methods of scientific research: comparative analysis, system approach, the Robinsonade model (Crusoe model). Scientific novelty of the research. The scientific novelty of the results lies in solving an important scientific problem - identifying the features of implementing the allocative function of public finance in the regions with a specific mode of operating (as exemplified by the Donetsk People’s Republic, where there is a special military and political situation, a mobilization type of economy, a transitional period due to the integration of the Republic into the system of the Russian Federation federal relations) in order to improve the system of public finance management in such regions. Results. The main results of the study consist in characterizing the process of implementing the allocation function of public finance, which makes it possible to determine the maximum effect of economic actions of the subjects in the current conditions, as well as to lay the foundations for analyzing the following distribution function of public finance. Conclusions. The author makes a conclusion that in the context of strengthening the role of public finance, not only in ensuring the economic development of the Donetsk People’s Republic, but also in the post-crisis recovery and stabilization of business activity, the implementation of the allocation function of public finance becomes important. (shrink)

The main subject of the article is a comparative analysis of the cultures of political relations between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the middle of the twentieth century. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as ideologization and authoritarianism, centralization of power, control over society and the phenomena of political cults. The article analyzes the key principles and values underlying the political systems of both countries, as well as the (...) strategic goals and methodologies used to implement them. The author explores how ideological principles, power hierarchies and nuances of the political process influenced the formation of civic consciousness and behavioral paradigms of citizens. The article also examines the historical, cultural and geopolitical determinants that determine the similarities and differences in the political cultures of the USSR and the People's Republic of China, and their impact on the domestic and foreign policies of these states. The research methodology includes a comparative analysis of historical sources and scientific works devoted to the political cultures of the USSR and the People's Republic of China, with an emphasis on the study of ideological, structural and socio-political aspects that shaped their development. The scientific novelty of the article lies in a comprehensive comparative analysis of the cultures of the political relations between the USSR and the People's Republic of China, which reveals both common features and unique features of each of them. For the first time, detailed parallels and differences between the two countries are considered in the context of ideologization, centralization of power and mechanisms of control over society. The findings of the study show that despite the common communist heritage, the political cultures of the USSR and the People's Republic of China developed along different trajectories due to national characteristics, historical events and internal political processes. The author argues that these differences have had a significant impact on the international positions and domestic policies of States. As a result, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the processes of formation and evolution of the political systems of communist regimes, which is important for historians and political scientists studying the history and politics of socialist countries. (shrink)

As shown through an inventory of the procedures used in diverse forms of qualitative content analysis projects, the logic of qualitative procedures is in most cases not standardized. Often researchers pay little or no attention to the procedures which they apply. This contribution presents and discusses a procedure for interpretive content analysis which was applied in an empirical study into trans-border news coverage in the Dutch-German Euregion Rhine-Waal. First, we will describe the study on the portrayal of the Dutch and (...) German people as well as their respective countries, The Netherlands and Germany, in the four main regional newspapers of this region. Secondly, basic principles of qualitative methodology are discussed and, thirdly, the procedure of the applied method based on these principles is presented and illustrated by means of exemplary material. Finally, after a brief presentation of some empirical results, the applied procedure of interpretive content analysis is discussed. (shrink)

This volume-"Selected Contemporary Challenges of Aging Policy"-is the most international of all published monographs from the series "Czech-Polish-Slovak Studies in Andragogy and Social Gerontology." Among the scholars trying to grasp the nuances and trends of social policy, there are diverse perspectives, resulting not only from the extensive knowledge of the authors on the systematic approach to the issue of supporting older people but also from the grounds of the represented social gerontology schools. In the texts of Volume VII interesting (...) are both distinct and coherent elements presenting the role of local, regional and global policies in the prism of the countries from which the authors originate: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Turkey, and the United States. The chapters show a wealth of methodological approaches to the perception of social policy and its tools. In the texts there are issues related to the idea of active ageing, discrimination against older people in the workplace, comparability of solutions friendly to employment of older adults in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia as well as focused on the importance of educational forms determining an active life in old age. This monograph also attempted to answer the question regarding how to transfer the idea of intergenerational learning into the realm of practice. This issue complements the chapter on the implementation of intergenerational programs in institutions providing long-term care support. The book also outlines a public policy on ageing in the perspective of the changes over the last few decades and the case demonstrating solutions to accelerate self-reliance as a key to active ageing. We hope that seventh volume of our series will be an intellectual stimulus for further international research on change in social policy and will contribute to the dissemination of best practices as well as contribute to positive social change. (shrink)

Even though the first book of the Republic ends with the claim that the definition of justice has not been determined, a careful analysis of the details of Socrates’ arguments with Polemarchus and Thrasymachus yields a definition of justice. Polemarchus should have defended the understanding of justice as helping friends and harming enemies by saying that, because one can use one’s knowledge either to help or to harm, a just person will choose to use his knowledge of an art (...) either to help his friends or to harm his enemies. Socrates’ art of wage-earning is not really an art at all, but merely amounts to having an ulterior motive for doing what one does. Socrates’ true position will be seen to be that just people use their knowledge for the sake of helping people—not for the sake of acquiring some supposed benefit for themselves in the future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.3 (2000) 53-71 [Access article in PDF] Ghostly Politics Jann Matlock [Figures]The failure of the Second Republic, as we know well, thanks to Marx, was a matter of ghostly politics.1 Successful revolutions succeeded—claimed Marx—in "waking the dead" in order to glorify the new struggles. Unsuccessful revolutions parodied, as in 1848, the old ones. The Second Republic failed to find again "the spirit of revolution" ("den Geist (...) der Revolution"); instead, it made its "ghost walk about again" ["Der 18te Brumaire" 116].2The "conjurations of the dead" ("Totenbeschwörungen") [115] of the failed Second Republic—and of the Second Empire, which crowned its disastrous experiment—were nowhere more apparent than in the obsession that swept France in 1853 within months after Louis-Napoléon declared himself Emperor in the spectral shadow of his great-uncle, as contemporary Louis Figuier described:Suddenly—it was near the last days of April 1853—Paris woke up prey to the [Table-]turning epidemic, and the newspapers, which finally had to break the silence, informed us that [the epidemic] had simultaneously burst forth in Strasbourg, in Marseille, in Bordeaux, in Toulouse, and in all our other great population centers. For the public, it was, at first, only a simple amusement to which people everywhere surrendered themselves amidst great bursts of laughter. Pedestal tables [guéridons], [other kinds of] tables, hats, plates and washbasins—everything that was within reach—were called into service. Some people succeeded. Others—and these were the greater number—failed at the experiment; they accused the successful of deception [supercherie], and the successful, in their turn, accused the unsuccessful of failing to believe. "They turn; they donít turn": that summed up all the debates on this subject, and these were the only two terms through which, among the vulgar, the question of the tables was thrashed about. In our country, always quite frivolous about serious matters, though sometimes extreme in its credulousness and sometimes absurd in its skepticism, the tables were for the larger share of people only an amusement, only a way to kill time in society. Quarrels were frequent [End Page 53] on this subject. People denied. People confirmed. People laughed—when they were not losing their tempers.Nevertheless, the phenomenon soon appeared to make progress, and this was quite another story. Not only did the tables turn, but they spoke and wrote; they rose up and held themselves in the air without any strings—or at least without any visible ones. The tables gave consultations, discovered secrets buried in the most profound mystery, put the world of the living in communication with the world of the dead, and finally, behaved in such a way to let people believe they were haunted by spirits [hantées par des esprits]. [294-95] The Baron Du Potet, editor of the Journal du magnétisme, remarked in the summer of 1853 that "The tables are making one hell of a noise! —Enter into the porter's lodge, you'll see him make his table turn; go to the home of a judge, of a lawyer, of an archbishop even, and their tables are turning—after dinner, of course. It seems that they are even interrogating tables in palaces" [643]. Alexandre Erdan, author of an 1855 book on "the religious excentricities" of contemporary France, denounced the table turning as "a universal monomania" and declared it the "the characteristic event" of the year 1853, "that memorable period of universal mental estrangement" [71]. Daumier honored the trend in May and June 1853 with a series of a dozen caricatures called La Fluidomanie.3 Caricaturist Cham continued to ridicule its believers well into the year 1853 [Fig. 1].4 Louis Huart, author of a series of satirical articles in the opposition newspaper Le Charivari recounted a debate between two scholars on the subject: "Sir, are you for tables turning or for tables not turning," asked the first. The second replied, "It's all the same to me so long as the table is well served and it doesn't turn while I'm eating." Huart's conclusion, not dissimilar to that of most... (shrink)

Cicero's On the Republic and On the Laws are his major works of political philosophy. They offer his fullest treatment of fundamental political questions: Why should educated people have any concern for politics? Is the best form of government simple, or is it a combination of elements from such simple forms as monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy? Can politics be free of injustice? The two works also help us to think about natural law, which many people have considered since ancient (...) times to provide a foundation of unchanging, universal principles of justice. On the Republic features a defense of politics against those who advocated abstinence from public affairs. It defends a mixed constitution, the actual arrangement of offices in the Roman Republic, against simple forms of government. The Republic also supplies material for students of Roman history—as does On the Laws. The Laws, moreover, presents the results of Cicero's reflections as to how the republic needed to change in order not only to survive but also to promote justice David Fott’s vigorous yet elegant English translation is faithful to the originals. It is the first to appear since publication of the latest critical edition of the Latin texts. This book contains an introduction that both places Cicero in his historical context and explicates the timeless philosophical issues that he treats. The volume also provides a chronology of Cicero’s life, outlines of the two works, and indexes of personal names and important terms. (shrink)

Human cognition affects the result of symbolic activity. Evidentiality is a linguistic concept which encodes the source of information and expresses the attitude and confidence of speaker. This paper collects 31 judgments from the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and local people’s courts in the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C) as the research corpus, and analyzes the evidentiality in four aspects: information source, lingual form, evidential function and speaker’s attitude of the information. It is found in this study that: 1) (...) The information sources are divided into four types as cultural belief, sensory experience, verbal rumor and inferential hypothesis; 2) Lingual form consists of three categories: vocabulary, phrase and compound sentence; 3) Evidentiality in court judgments performs four functions: support with citation, induction with description, paraphrase with less responsibility and summarization with reasoning; 4) The reliability of evidentiality presents a two-tier structure based on different information sources. From the perspective of Peirce’s semiotics, the paper analyzes the judicial practice of court judgments with actual data and proposes some suggestions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Haiti Can't BreatheNéhémy Pierre-Dahomey (bio)Translated by David F. BellI'm not particularly familiar with recent politics in Haiti. Nor, as it were, with the contemporary history of the country. In some sense, the difference between recent politics and contemporary history is rather delicate. History would be the most profound social, political, and economic points of contention behind the daily lives of a population under siege. Not simply those talked about (...) while people travel in public transportation (Haitians talk a lot while in public transportation), but also the interpretive matrices mobilized to speak about these problems. As for current events, they are the province of newspaper headlines, those front pages and editorial pages most often read and shared, the public opinion machine.Of course, a few snippets of news come to me: the rise of kidnapping, political instability, the opposition declaring that the presidential mandate has ended, a government sponsored referendum to change the constitution, upcoming elections. As I write this piece (summer 2021), armed banditry is rife in many working-class neighborhoods. There are victims by the dozens nearly every day.As I was asking myself how best to express the bicentennial dyspnea of the Haitian people, I learned about the assassination of the president of the Republic in his private residence.Haiti could not breathe. Now it is suffocating.I recently published a novel entitled Combats (March 2021) in which the characters live in a nineteenth-century rural setting. They experience the full force of the first consequences provoked by the infamous independence debt, well understood by Haitians and analyzed by international specialists such as David Graeber and Thomas Piketty.After its independence in 1804, Haiti was not accepted into the concert of nations. The country, founded by hordes of previously enslaved Blacks and by freed Mulattos, was a bad example, a model not to be emulated so geographically near a slave society, the United States, and the Antilles belonging to France. No economic power, that is, no white country defining itself as such, recognized the independence of the new Black, abolitionist, and egalitarian population. The isolation of Haiti thus began at the very moment of its foundation. [End Page 165]In a vain attempt to escape the embargo and to construct a collective destiny at the international level, Haiti accepted a colossal debt imposed on it by France. Charles X, king of France and Navarre, forced Jean-Pierre Boyer, supreme leader of the Haitian nation, to assume the responsibility for a ransom of 120 million francs. The economist Thomas Piketty calculates that this was equivalent to 28 billion euros in today's currency. David Graeber, in his Debt: The First 500 Years, considers it to be the most egregious debt in history. In truth, for Haitians, this strange transaction consisted in buying lands they had already conquered in their independence struggle, having taken them from the previous colonial settlers representing the French state.Since the previously emancipated ancestors were considered the colonial settlers' property, Haitians, under threat from the French army, assumed the weight of this debt, which really consisted in purchasing—from their previous torturers—their very persons and those of their grandparents. In other words, after the war of independence, begun by Black Maroons as soon as they arrived on the island of Haiti, pursued by Toussaint Louverture against slavery, brought successfully to a conclusion by Jean Jacques Dessalines through victorious military battles (November 1803 at Vertières, for example), after this long road toward emancipation, France, supported by all the foreign powers of the period, extracted from Haiti recognition of the debt in 1826, that is, during the first half of the nineteenth century, at the very moment when the independent countries of the world were beginning to undergo a massive industrialization.Haiti clearly missed out on this entrance into the industrial age of the steam engine. It remained an "essentially agricultural" country because every year it had to pay debt service—including interest—every year until the second half of the 20th century!Like many others I saw the images of the white man, Derek Chauvin, resting his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight... (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. This article explores the phenomenon of managing the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism, a cornerstone of the spiritual and cultural identity of Tibetans. It examines the political intervention of the Chinese government in this sacred tradition, focusing particularly on the implementation of 'Order No. 5' (2007), which regulates the reincarnation of tulkus. M e t hods. The research employs historical-critical analysis to trace the genesis of the tulku tradition (...) and a comparative approach to examine the differences between traditional Tibetan and modern Chinese views on reincarnation. Official documents and religious texts are analysed through the lens of political philosophy and religious studies. R esu l t s. The study reveals that the bureaucratisation of the reincarnation process by the Chinese government undermines the spiritual autonomy of Tibetan Buddhism while advancing political control and cultural assimilation (Sinicisation). The implementation of 'Order No. 5' has become a mechanism for consolidating state control over sacred traditions, provoking widespread international criticism. C onc l u s i ons. Reincarnation, as a deeply spiritual practice, is increasingly being used as a tool of political influence, posing significant challenges to the preservation of Tibetan cultural and religious identity. The Chinese government's control over this process risks creating divisions within Tibetan communities and exacerbates tensions on the international stage. (shrink)

The rule of law is a valuable human achievement. It is valuable not only instrumentally, but also for its own sake as a significant aspect of social justice. Only in a society that enjoys the rule of law is it possible for people to regard one another as fellow free citizens; no one the master of anyone else. Nevertheless, the rule of law is poorly understood. In this book, Frank Lovett develops a rigorous conception of the rule of law that (...) is grounded in legal positivism, and offers a civic republican argument for its value in terms of freedom from domination. Bridging persistent methodological gaps that divide legal philosophy, social science, and political theory, Lovett demonstrates how insights from all three can be united in a single powerful theory. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the rule of law, including scholars, legal officials, and policy-makers. (shrink)

The recent advances in assisted reproductive technology, such as hormonal stimulation, IVF, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), have made it possible to circumvent many causes of male and female factor infertility. However, uterine infertility is still considered an ‘‘unconditionally infertile’’ condition. Owing to the continued advances in organ transplantation, microvascular anastomosis techniques, and immunosuppressive medicine, the transplantation of organs is no longer restricted to the ones necessary for continued life. Quality-of-life enhancing types of transplantation, such as uterine transplantation, in recent (...) years, have also entered the clinical arena. This undoubtedly brings new hope to such women, but also creates ethical challenges. Selection of the donor, the impact on the recipient and offspring, as well as challenges to moral and social norms are issues that cannot be ignored. In the present review, the ethical issues of transplantation of the uterus will be discussed in light of recent progress in the procedure. (shrink)

Plato's Republic, one of the great works in the history of philosophy, is presented here as it was written - as a dramatic performance exploring various perspectives on justice, truth, knowledge, and the good. Plato wrote each book of The Republic to be performed by actors playing the characters of Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, and the others. When Book One was performed, he then invited his students—the brightest and best young people in Athens—to respond to each and every (...) argument, issue, and question posed by the characters. Rather than passively listening, they were lured into the process and challenged to evaluate and improve on the ideas presented in the performance. Based on their responses, Plato then wrote Book Two. The same process was repeated, and Book Three was generated. In this way all ten books evolved as part of a dynamic and creative dialectic intended to take place in the souls of each and every participant—including Plato himself. This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

In this book, Goodman has made a major contribution to the study of the social and political currents of the French Enlightenment. Previous histories of the period tended to gloss over, or ignore downright, some of the most important people and institutions involved in the gradual extension of literacy and public debate that would culminate in the upheavals of the French Revolution. In particular, the central role of the Parisian salon and the work of its presiding genius, the salonnière, have (...) not received the attention they merit. It is Goodman's thesis that the salon was chief home to the adventuresome forays of the philosophes, providing a fertile context for the development and communication of ideas essential to the eighteenth-century vision of encyclopedic and humanistic learning. Without the weekly salon meetings, without the tireless epistolary and conversational efforts of their female governors, the "work of enlightenment" would not have materialized, let alone evolve as it did. (shrink)

Public debates rage on about the extent to which the character of political candidates should be examined in the public media. This study examines attitudes of newspaper editors, and finds that their attitudes appear to approximate those of the public. A substantial number of editors felt that too much public attention is paid to these matters, yet there was a recognition of demand. As in office gossip, people want to hear these things, but the teller loses some credibility.

When Marx dissected the capitalist economy and intervened in the international workers’ movement, he did so in the service of freeing people from alien, uncontrolled power. His political project was the realisation of what he called the social republic, and his theoretical project was to identify the forces that promote or retard this political project. In order to bring out the specificity and cogency of the social-republican Marx, this essay uproots the positive-freedom reading that has overgrown the edifice of (...) his thought. Marx certainly hoped for ‘real freedom’, which is a sort of self-realisation. He also hoped for a sort of collective self-determination. And he thought that collective self-determination was a prerequisite for general self-realisation. But Marx also thought that generalised freedom from domination was a prerequisite for collective self-determination. (shrink)

In Books Five and Six of The Republic, the quest for justice that has guided the dialogue from the beginning now shifts to the search for an even more encompassing quality—goodness. But what is the nature of goodness? Can human beings know it and teach it to others? How can it be manifested in the republic? To answer such questions requires a genuine lover of wisdom. How can such people be distinguished from those who simply pretend to know? (...) This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

Procedural approaches to political legitimacy have become increasingly popular amongst liberals. According to such an approach, the legitimacy of a state decision is primarily derived from the processes followed in order to make that decision and not from the quality of the decision itself. The processes that liberals have in mind are typically those found within a system of democratic institutions. These electoral and legislative procedures are supposed to allow the state’s constitutive members to reach legitimately binding agreements on how (...) the state should exercise its power. In response to this trend in liberalism, this dissertation has two goals. The first is to argue that formal results in the social decision sciences seriously question the viability of these procedural approaches. The second goal, however, is to argue that these results do not necessitate complete abandonment of procedural approaches but require liberals to more carefully specify the sorts of agreements that legitimacy requires and what procedures may reliably produce such agreements. I ultimately agree that procedures are important for liberalism but they require more careful understanding and defense. In order to carry this project out, this dissertation is divided into five chapters. In the first two chapters, I outline a fairly standard account of liberalism while arguing that it contains a serious tension that liberal democratic institutions are supposed to resolve. The second chapter in particular seeks to explain the various ways in which the procedural aspects of democracy are particularly appealing in this respect. In the third chapter, I then present Arrow’s famous impossibility result along with other formal result from social choice theory suggesting that in certain situations there simply is no correct procedure for legitimate outcomes that the liberal state may employ. The fourth chapter responds to this concern by maintaining that there exists a symmetry between how an individual person and the liberal state make decisions, and that insights into individual decision making sheds light on how it may be done by a group of people in a liberal democracy. Finally, in the fifth chapter, I move in this direction by presenting an account of the sort of agreements between individuals that legitimacy ought to be grounded upon. Ultimately, procedures like voting remain an important aspect of liberal democracy for authorizing state action, though not necessarily for the reasons that many liberal democrats endorse. (shrink)

At the end of the XX century something extraordinary happened in history of Poland. Without using violence the country become independent and Soviet occupation was stopped. The phenomenon proved John Paul II’ s teachings that “peace is made of justice and solidarity”. This article is divided into two parts. The first one is about the principles of solidarity used during the 1980 strike in the Shipyard of Gdańsk. These principles enabled the strike leaders to hold talks with the communist authorities. (...) The agreement was the key which freed the country from the Soviet occupation and eventually gave it its freedom. The second part of the article consists of a description of interhuman and international solidarity which is found in John Paul II’s works. His teaching during the 3rd pilgrimage to Poland that took place in 1987 and which was addressed mainly to the working people of Gdańsk and Gdynia had a great impact on Polish people. However after Poland regained its independence the idea of solidarity was forgotten. It could not be found in the reality described in newspapers or other mass media. It’s high time this changed. Scientists and journalists responsible for the picture of public life, should remind society of the solidarity principles. They should also show the advantages of using these rules in the national economy. Thus showing the way to a successful, peaceful development of work, economic development and well-being in our present day society. (shrink)

The politics of Plato's Republic has been all but universally condemned by modern liberal readers as totally and odiously inimical to democratic ideals. Plato's proposals for government by an unelected elite class of guardians, for censorship and indoctrination, for occupational restrictions, etc., are seen at best as stifling freedom and individual initiative and at worst as totalitarian. It has seldom or never been noticed, however, how much his polity resembles our own, for better or worse. American democracy, present and (...) past, has endorsed most of the basic political principles of the Republic. If often only tacitly, we recognize natural inequalities among people; that some are more fit than others for some occupations, including governing; and that indoctrination and censorship are desirable in some circumstances. Most important, though little recognized outside political theory, is the fact that the United States, like most modern democracies, has a guardianship form of government, comparable to that outlined in the Republic, in which the electoral franchise has little significance. Making due allowance for our own ideological myths on the one hand and for Platonic whimsy on the other, it can be seen that Plato's Republic and ours are, paradoxically, much the same in both aims and means. (shrink)

A contribution to the renewed German and French discussion about the important German philosopher of this century, Martin Heidegger, and about his relation to national socialism. To deal with the ideological and personal partake of the thinker in the activity of NSDAP is deserves our attention from the two points of view. First, Heidegger's attitude towards his own past after 1945 is typical for the spiritual position that continually shaped the history of the Federal Republic of Germany up to (...) the 60's. Second, each tradition, which made people blind to the nazi regime, is to be critically adopted. J. Habermas asks if there was an inner connection between Heidegger's philosophy and his political perception of the situation. He summarizes the views of O. Poggeler, W. Franzen, H. Ott, and he refers to other writings and newspaper articles as well. The author emphasizes that any moral evaluation of the behaviour and the acting during the nazi epoch is possible only when based on a historical approach. Heidegger's work, on the other hand, disconnected itself from his personality already long time ago, and especially the Being and Time is placed so eminently in the philosophical thought of our century, that it cannot be discredited at all by his engagement on the part of fascism. (shrink)

Britain's “restless republic” survived for only eleven turbulent years, from 1649 to 1660. Britain today is a somewhat restless monarchy, troubled from within by two turbulent and disgruntled royal princes, Andrew and Harry, and from without by considerable public unease. If the two princes had been firstborns rather than younger brothers, and in the direct line of succession, the long-term future of the monarchy would look very uncertain. Charles I, stubborn and inept, was a younger brother too. Had his (...) very popular older brother Henry, Prince of Wales, not died at the age of eighteen, from typhoid fever caught by swimming in the river Thames (very unwise then as now), the English Revolution might well never have happened. A generation later, Charles II came close to facing a second revolution, so we monitor the reign of Charles III with interest and some trepidation.Keay gives us the dramatic history of the republic through the eyes and lives of a dozen or so very diverse individuals and families. They include several major players, such as John Bradshaw, the judge who sentenced the king to death; Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector; and George Monck, architect of the Restoration. The cast of characters also includes a brilliant, time-serving journalist, a Norfolk country squire, a formidable French-born countess, an ambitious inventor, a lowborn visionary and prophetess, and Gerrard Winstanley, leader of the tiny Digger movement. Winstanley established a small and short-lived communist settlement in Surrey in 1649, and his name is still commemorated centuries later in an obelisk standing in Moscow's Red Square, credited as a forerunner of the Bolshevik Revolution. The settlement's site is now, paradoxically, home to a gated community of the megarich. Keay weaves these personal stories into a wider narrative of events across England, Scotland, and Ireland. Remarkably, she gives us a sympathetic and empathetic insight into each of her diverse subjects’ minds and lives. We enter their worlds and see events through their eyes, words, and actions. The composite world that emerges is splintered and full of contradictions, and Keay does not ignore the sometimes darker elements in her subjects’ visions and lives. I have been reading and writing on this period for over fifty years, and this book is probably the most engaging, page-turning account of it that I have encountered. Keay captures brilliantly its people and places, and her judgments are sharp and perceptive. There are lots of good pictures too. This is an ideal introduction for anyone coming new to the subject, or indeed new to history, and with plenty to delight hardened veterans too. Do read it. (shrink)

Books five & six: "The quest for justice that has guided the dialogue in Plato's Republic from the beginning now shifts to the search for an even more encompassing quality--goodness. But what is the nature of goodness? Can human beings know it and teach it to others? How can it be manifested in the republic? To answer such questions requires a genuine lover of wisdom. How can such people be distinguished from those who simply pretend to know?".

The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a satisfactory account of Plato’s theory of justice. Firstly, a study of the role and the functions of the rational part of the soul are offered. Secondly, some crucial aspects of happiness are illustrated. These considerations are important to introduce the account on justice. Two kinds of justice are distinguished: psychic justice and common justice. The former expresses the relation between the different parts of the soul, whereas the latter refers to (...) the interaction among people. In conclusion, it is analysed why P-justice is self-regarding, while C-justice is other-regarding. (shrink)

The authors conducted a qualitative analysis of thirty-seven issues of The DDU Review, a newsletter produced by residents of the Dual Diagnosis Unit, a residential unit for people who had diagnoses of developmental disability and serious mental illness in the Central State Hospital. The analysis of the newsletters produced between September 1988 and June 1992 revealed three major themes: 1) the mundane; 2) good behavior; and 3) advocacy. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, the discourse of medicalization—such as relations with physicians, (...) diagnoses, and medications—receive little attention. Instead, the patient-journalists focus on prosaic aspects of institutional life. The patients used their writing as a form self-definition and advocacy. The authors argue that even though it is tempting to consider the patients’ emphasis on good behavior as evidence of institutional control, internalized discipline, and medicalization, a more nuanced interpretation, which focuses on how the patients’ understood their own experiences, is warranted. Researchers must also recognize the ways in which The DDU Review reveals the patient-journalists’ experience of an institutional life that includes non-medical staff, varied social relationships among patients, and negotiated freedoms. (shrink)

Battles against domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China have been carried out since 1995. In this study, legislative progression of laws related to domestic violence is first examined and clarified; second, findings from the legislative review are investigated on the basis of civil and criminal cases; third, the interaction among social and traditional norms, legislation, and judicial outcomes is explored and interpreted from a sociosemiotic perspective. It is found in this study that: 1) legislation and judicial practices (...) of domestic violence in the P. R. C. are closely intertwined with social and traditional norms; 2) there is a gap between judicial practices dealing with domestic violence and the legislation; 3) the Anti-Domestic Violence Law offers a notch for state powers to embrace the familial relationship and to safeguard a victim. (shrink)

In Books Five and Six of The Republic, the quest for justice that has guided the dialogue from the beginning now shifts to the search for an even more encompassing quality—goodness. But what is the nature of goodness? Can human beings know it and teach it to others? How can it be manifested in the republic? To answer such questions requires a genuine lover of wisdom. How can such people be distinguished from those who simply pretend to know? (...) This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

Can people efficiently navigate the modern communication environment, and if yes, how? We hypothesize that in addition to psychological capacities of epistemic vigilance, which evaluate the epistemic value of communicated information, some social institutions have evolved for the same function. Certain newspapers for instance, implement processes, distributed among several experts and tools, whose function is to curate information. We analyze how information curation is done at the institutional level and what challenges it meets. We also investigate what factors favor (...) the cultural evolution of institutions of epistemic vigilance: these include people’s preference for accurate and reliable information and their ability to assess communicated information in view of the source’s epistemic authority; but also contingent historical factors that make it worth—or not—to contribute to the maintenance of institutions of epistemic vigilance. We conclude the paper by considering the challenges and vulnerabilities of these institutions in the Digital Age. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont’s Democracy Without Shortcuts enriches the discussion of deliberative democracy with new insights. After discussing her three objections against Waldron’s denunciation of judicial review as antidemocratic, the main flaw of Waldron’s thesis is argued to remain out of focus. The constitution is understood by him as owned by the living citizens, in a pattern of serial sovereignty that raises three problems: (a) the ‘wanton republic’; (b) the under-individuation of the polity; (c) generational inequality. The answer to Lafont’s question (...) ‘Can We Own the Constitution?’ (Section Three) is then argued to be that only ‘we the people’, including past, present and future ‘free and equal’ generations, own the constitution. The living citizens are the segment of ‘the people’ endowed with agency, have a voice, can modify the inherited political scheme, but cannot legitimately disfigure it, under penalty of destroying the regulatory function of the constitution. (shrink)

A bold new approach to combatting the inherent corruption of representative democracy This provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers. Systemic Corruption argues that the problem cannot be blamed on the actions of corrupt politicians but is built into the very fabric of our representative systems. Camila Vergara provides a compelling and original genealogy of political corruption from ancient to modern (...) thought, and shows how representative democracy was designed to protect the interests of the already rich and powerful to the detriment of the majority. Unable to contain the unrelenting force of oligarchy, especially after experimenting with neoliberal policies, most democracies have been corrupted into oligarchic democracies. Vergara explains how to reverse this corrupting trajectory by establishing a new counterpower strong enough to control the ruling elites. Building on the anti-oligarchic institutional innovations proposed by plebeian philosophers, she rethinks the republic as a mixed order in which popular power is institutionalized to check the power of oligarchy. Vergara demonstrates how a plebeian republic would establish a network of local assemblies with the power to push for reform from the grassroots, independent of political parties and representative government. Drawing on neglected insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt, Systemic Corruption proposes to reverse the decay of democracy with the establishment of anti-oligarchic institutions through which common people can collectively resist the domination of the few. (shrink)

This book is designed for three classes of people: Beginners who want an introduction to philosophy; Those who have already had an introduction to philosophy and who would like to see it in action now applied to a great book written by a great philosophy, but who have never read Plato's Republic, the most famous and influential philosophy book ever written; Those who have read Plato's Republic before but did not understand its deepest significance. Why is Plato the (...) best introduction to philosophy? Peter Kreeft has taught philosophy for over 50 years, including one section of a course for beginners every semester. He has tried just about everything possible, and a few new things that are impossible. He has experimented with every one of the many alternative methods available for teaching beginners. (He has A.D.D., so he easily gets bored and likes to try new things all the time.) But he has never found anything nearly as successful as Plato. Plato is the best writer in the history of philosophy. Most philosophers are dull, undramatic, abstract writers. (There are a few other exceptions besides Plato: Augustine, Pascal, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard.) But Plato wrote dramatic dialogues, in which Socrates, his famous teacher, interacts with a great variety of fools. These dialogues are like intellectual swordfights, and even though you know Socrates is going to win, they are exciting because you see his ideas come alive, like a sword in the handoff a master. Plato is a great dramatist, a great poet, and a great psychologist as well as a great philosopher. Nobody else who ever lived combined those four talents as well as Plato did. Apprenticeship to a great master is the best way to learn any art. The student will understand what philosophy is better by watching a master do it than by reading abstract definitions of it from a second-rate philosopher, or by a mere scholar. Concrete examples are always the easiest way to learn things. Plato's dialogues are the world's first, and still the best, concrete example of philosophizing. Kreeft introduces his students to this love affair through a great matchmaker, Plato, who is a better teacher than the student will ever meet in the land of the living. In fact, Plato still is in the land of the living. He's still alive and kicking in his dialogues. He rubs off on those who are wise and humble enough to become a student. (shrink)