A decade after the fall of Communism in Europe, the Czech Republic'smembership in the European Union is still a matter of a relatively shortwaiting period of 4 years. Not so the imagination of this membership andthe creation of a political concept created to promote this goal: thespecific Central European policy initiated by Thomas G. Masaryk andrevitalized by Václav Havel. Despite the deep differences in thepolitical thought and philosophical orientations of both Presidents, notto mention the historic rupture of 41 years of (...) Totalitarianism, theirperceptions of Europe as an Imagined Community are identical. (shrink)

The precipitous cliffs, rolling headlands, and rocky inlets of the Big Sur coast of California prompted Robinson Jeffers to extol their wild beauty throughout his long career as a poet. This extraordinary volume brings together Jeffers’s haunting poetry with magnificent photographs of Big Sur by his friend and neighbor, famed photographer Morley Baer.

The roots and evolution of two concepts usually thought to be Western in origin-musica mundana (the music of the spheres) and musica humana (music's relation to the human soul)-are explored. Beginning with a study of the early creeds of the Near East, Professor Meyer-Baer then traces their development in the works of Plato and the Gnostics, and in the art and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Previous studies of symbolism in music have tended to focus on (...) a single aspect of the problem. In this book the concepts of musica humana and musica mundane are related to philosophy, aesthetics, and the history of religion and are given a rightful place in the history of civilization. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Power, peace, and the just war ethic -- The criterion of legitimate authority : describing the political act -- The criterion of just cause : the limits on government's international jurisdiction -- The criterion of just intention : the pursuit of peace and international order -- Justice in bello : applying the principle of discrimination -- The just war ethic and the nature of Christian realism.

How can we as health-care providers, along with those committed to advocating for health-care equity, draw on our work to tell stories that can make a difference in people’s lives? As a pediatrician and television writer, I’m in the unique position to promote public health through dramatic television stories that are grounded in data. By telling emotionally compelling stories that are informed by peer-reviewed research, we can improve public health, particularly in these COVID-19 times, when conspiracies and anecdotes swirl around (...) and crowd out the science.Today, all of us are fixated on what it means to be infectious, derived from the Latin inficere, “to spoil or stain.” The word itself is emotionally resonant... (shrink)

Le but de ces quelques remarques sur le jugement est de faire apparaître cette notion sous différents éclairages , tout en assurant une certaine progression d’un point de vue à l’autre. Dans la première section, il sera question non seulement de la synthèse au sens kantien du jugement synthétique fondé sur l’intuition, mais également des trois synthèses predicative, véritative et apophantique distinguées par Heidegger et reprises par Lotz. La deuxième section, plus proche de la pensée de Wittgenstein, s’interroge sur le (...) jugement dans le cadre de la « grammaire philosophique ». Enfin, la troisième section examine l’idée d’un primat du jugement sur la base du primat de la raison théorique soutenu par Jacques Poulain. En apparence, cette thèse prend le contre-pied de celle de Kant dans la Critique de la raison pratique, sans qu’on puisse lui attribuer la volonté de fonder une nouvelle « philosophie théorique ».The aim of the following remarks on judgment is to present this notion from different points of view , with a certain progression from the first to the others point of view. In the first section, it will be question not only of synthesis in the kantian sense which bears upon intuition, but equally of the three syntheses distinguished by Heidegger and Lotz. The second section, more wittgensteinian in spirit, asks the question of judgment in the context of the " philosophical grammar ". Finally, the third section investigates Jacques Poulain’s idea of a primacy of judgment on the basis of the primacy of theoretical reason over practical reason. At first sight, this thesis of Poulain seems to go against Kant’s thesis in the Critic of practical Reason, but we don’t have to attribute to him the will to establish a new " theoretical philosophy ". (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a wider application of Archon Fung's (2007) idea of a "pragmatic equilibrium". Would implementation of the practical recommendations that follow from a certain theory really contribute to the realisation of the values on which the theory was built? If political philosophers asked this question more often, this would benefit both the quality and the relevance of their theories. [Dutch].

La confrontation Kant/Wittgenstein qui se dessine ici n'a pas pour objectif principal de présenter les doctrines des deux auteurs. Il s'agit plutôt de marier ces pensées qui ne le désirent pas, de profiter de la confrontation pour faire avancer le débat. Quel débat? Contrairement à I'ordre historique, il tire son origine de Wittgenstein: comment faut-il comprendre les prorèmes que soulève Wittgenstein, les interdits qu'il pose? Certaines de ses affirmations ne peuvent tout simplement pas être des jugements analytiques, aurait dit Kant. (...) Nombre de ses «remarques grammaticales» ne sont évidemment pas des tautologies, et la question se pose au moins de savoir comment elles sont possibles comme jugements analytiques. (shrink)

Freedom and security are often portrayed as things that have to be traded off against one another, but this view does not capture the full complexity of the freedom-security relationship. Rather, there seem to be four different ways in which freedom and security connect to each other: freedom can come at the cost of security, security can come at the cost of freedom, freedom can work to the benefit of security, and security can work to the benefit of freedom. This (...) paper analyses each of these connections in turn. It shows that particular understandings of freedom can help us to see particular connections between freedom and security. The practical examples used to illustrate these connections are drawn from the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be suggested that, in the face of challenges such as this one, taking into account all four connections between freedom and security can ultimately help decision-makers in upholding both. (shrink)

The central thesis of this essay is that basic income experiments are justified if their expected benefits in terms of justice exceed their expected costs in terms of justice. The benefits are a function of basic income’s effect on the level of justice attained in the context in which it is implemented, and the experiment’s impact on future policy-making. The costs comprise the sacrifices made as a result of the experiment’s interventional character, as well as the study’s opportunity costs. In (...) light of the proposed standard of justification for basic income experiments, the factors that play a role in it, and the way these interact with one another, this essay provides some practical recommendations for researchers hoping to conduct such an experiment. (shrink)

This essay challenges a "meta-theory" in just war analysis that purports to bridge the divide between just war and pacifism. According to the meta-theory, just war and pacifism share a common presumption against killing that can be overridden only under conditions stipulated by the just war criteria. Proponents of this meta-theory purport that their interpretation leads to ecumenical consensus between "just warriors" and pacifists, and makes the just war theory more effective in reducing recourse to war. Engagement with the new (...) meta-theory reveals, however, that these purported advantages are illusory, made possible only by ignoring fundamental questions about the nature and function of political authority that are crucial to all moral reflection on the problem of war. (shrink)

Resolutions in the United Nations Human Rights Council and General Assembly provide clarification of economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, and most of these resolutions pass by consensus. Yet these resolutions are more contentious than they appear. This article analyzes a case study of contestation over resolutions on two ESC rights: water and sanitation. Drawing from theories of norms contestation, this article analyzes how the USA, UK, and Canada challenged the creation of the rights to water and sanitation as rights (...) and as norms. An analysis of all resolutions, archival research, and interview data reveals that while challengers failed to stop water and sanitation from becoming legal human rights, they successfully delayed the process and weakened the normative aspect of the rights. The findings show that while powerful actors may not be opposed to ESC rights in theory, they worked to keep these rights weak and aspirational. (shrink)

In his speech to the opening of the High Level section of the recent Copenhagen climate negotiations last December, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas of Grenada, speaking for AOSIS (the Alliance of Sma...

Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel (...) determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. (shrink)

It is shown that the violation of Bell's inequality allowed by quantum mechanics and the related Bell's theorem without inequalities is accounted for by local commutations of operators representing single-particle observables. It is argued that the idea of nonlocal influencing of one particle on another when they are in spacelike separated regions clearly has neither empirical nor theoretical support.

The commitment to evidence-based practice in clinical psychology requires scientific investigation of the effects of treatment and mechanisms of change. Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness-based treatments provide clinically meaningful improvement for people suffering from many important problems, including depression, anxiety, pain, and stress. However, the processes of change that produce these beneficial outcomes are not entirely clear. Central questions include whether mindfulness training leads to increases in the general tendency to respond mindfully to the experiences of daily life, and if (...) so, whether these changes are responsible for the improvements in mental health that are often observed. Answering these questions requires methods for assessing mindfulness. Several tools for this purpose are now available and early evidence suggests that they are useful and informative, despite shortcomings that require additional work. This paper summarizes the rationale for mindfulness questionnaires, the methods used to construct them, and research findings on their utility. Challenges related to maintaining consistency with Buddhist conceptions of mindfulness while applying psychological research methods to the study of its assessment are discussed. (shrink)

The 'Hard Problem' of consciousness and its 'Explanatory Gap' can only be explained if we develop a physical theory which recognizes the Universe as a cognitive being and is based upon a fundamental process that transforms mind into body and back again. The physical requirements needed to realize such a transformation cycle are investigated and an explicit implementation of the consciousness process is presented. This implementation consists of an integrated mind-body activity that explains mental experiences with a model of the (...) activity itself. Such a self-referential loop is shown to be both a fundamental physical process and a container of primitive self- awareness from which complex experiences can be built. Explaining consciousness requires an expansion of current physical theories. To develop this expansion I will first associate the components of the consciousness process with individual operations occurring in the architecture of quantum theory. This will provide explicit mathematical equations required to describe conscious phenomena and show their limits. Because quantum equations apply to the content of space, but not to the sensation of space itself, they can only represent an approximate description of the consciousness process and are hence incomplete. I will, therefore, go on to discuss the approximations which limit quantum theory from providing a complete explanation of consciousness and suggest the metaphysical underpinnings required to expand quantum physics into a more complete description of reality. Lastly, I will discuss the implications of a reality model in which all parts of the universe, including the reader, are fundamentally self- measurement processes and the sensation of space is not that of an a priori container, but rather a 'what it feels like' to be a time-stable event. (shrink)