Karl Mannheim's contribution to a conceptual framework towards establishing objective knowledge in the social sciences has been overlooked and neglected. The paper discusses and reevaluates particularly Mannheim's concept of relationism which he used for clarifying the possibility of a "dynamic synthesis of perspectives" as the task of sociology of knowledge. One of the functions of Mannheim's conceptual framework was to narrow the gap between the techno-scientific or empiricist paradigm of knowledge and the humanistic-hermeneutical paradigm by a set of mediations which (...) shifted the emphasis from facts to the way of looking at them through concepts and terms which are never purely experiential, i.e. independent of interpretation. The author stresses the epistemological fertility of the relationist model of truth in view of recent insights of sociology of science. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's philosophy is the description of the structure and behavior of human consciousness. Adi Shmüeli reconstructs that philosophy by showing that it always reflects the structure in question, and thus provides a useful key to Kierkegaard's work. Mr. Shmüeli approaches his task by analyzing first the aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages of life as successive steps in the gradual awakening of consciousness. He then describes the alienation of consciousness, of which Kierkegaard speaks in all his works, and discusses Kierkegaard's theory (...) of indirect communication, philosophical action whose aim is to awaken consciousness in order to rescue it from alienation. Studying Kierkegaard's observations on Christianity as indirect communication, Professor Shmüeli deals also with his reflections on the philosophical problem of truth. His concluding chapter discusses the temporality and historicity of human consciousness. Quotations, taken primarily from accessible English translations, are generously provided to put the reader in direct contact with Kierkegaard's own words. Originally published in 1971. 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 editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover 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)

In thirteenth-century Castile, the kabbalist R. Joseph of Hamadan offered an unprecedented articulation of the idea of reincarnation (gilgul), proposing that Jewish men could be reborn as gentiles, women, or even animals. This article studies the formation of the Jewish belief in the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies, focusing on the question of animal pain. It contextualizes the kabbalistic literary treatment of animals by examining the thirteenth-century European genre of bestiaries, which attempted to instill proper morals in readers (...) by associating animals with sinners. Although the idea of animal reincarnation led kabbalists to treat animals as creatures with human souls, it did not lead to a fundamental or radical shift in the treatment of animals. (shrink)

Alfred Russell Wallace’s The Malay Archipelago, published in 1869, is a classic text in natural history and the theory of evolution. Amidst heroic hunting narratives and picturesque descriptions of local fauna and flora, stands out a curious episode in which Wallace describes adopting a baby orangutan, whose mother he had killed. Wallace, a British naturalist and collector, cultivated an affectionate relationship with the orphaned orangutan, often referring to her as his “baby.” This paper examines how the orangutan was transformed from (...) being a moving target for museum display, to a beloved companion but also a scientific specimen. In this process, Wallace redesigned his colonial bungalow to a space that combined domestic settings with engineered nature-like environments, a familiar construction in later primate research. I use Wallace’s adoption episode to discuss how affect and care were interwoven into the exploitative relations of British naturalists and physiologists and the animals they studied. The account of Wallace’s idiosyncratic relationship with the orangutan is augmented with additional documentation of the close relationships of scientists with research animals, staged as familial kinship. The emergence of the “laboratory pet” demonstrates how the production of knowledge, the sharing of households, and human-animal emotional ties were interwoven in early biomedical research. (shrink)

The following essay is part of a study which aims at grounding the concepts of freedom—personal, sociopolitical, metaphysical—and a variety of their combinations in the unique ontological structure of selfhood and its dialectical unfoldings. The claims of both hard determinism and absolute freedom are rejected.

At first glance it seems to be merely a curious accident that existentialist philosophers, like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre should relate to Husserl's phenomenology as Kierkegaard on the one hand, and Feuerbach and Marx on the other related to Hegel. The latter argued that since the cognitive I is merely a concrete real being, it cannot transcend its spacio-temporal existence and look at the world from the perspective of the absolute Being or God. Neither can human consciousness reveal in itself (...) the “truth” of all Being or develop the “truth” in its own confinement dialectically. Under these attacks the identity-philosophy of German idealism collapsed. (shrink)

(1973). Pragmatic, Existentialist and Phenomenological Interpretations of Marxism. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 139-152.

"בספרו זה מביא סמי שמואלי את חזונו בדבר "הדרך האמצעית" שהיא הדרך שבה ראוי לנהל את עולמנו. לאחר סקירה מקיפה של מקורות "הדרך האמצעית" בחמש תרבויות - הסינית, ההודית-בודהיסטית, היוונית-נוצרית והאיסלמית, הוא מגיע אל מקורות "הדרך האמצעית" ביהדות, כפי שהיא באה לידי ביטוי בכתבי הקודש ובפירושים הרבים, כולל בהגותו של הרמב"ם"--מן המעטפת האחורית.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of requests formercy killings by patients and their relatives. Under certain conditions,the patient may prefer death to a life devoid of quality. In contrast to thosewho uphold this quality of life approach, those who hold the sanctity oflife approach claim that life has intrinsic value and must be preservedregardless of its quality. This essay describes these two approaches,examines their flaws, and offers a golden path between the two extremepositions.We discuss (...) the halachic and the secular views, arguing for a balancebetween the sanctity of life and the quality of life. We argue that, indeed,such a balance exists in practice, and that life is important, but it is not sacred. Life can be evaluated, but quality of life is not the solecriterion. (shrink)

Scholarly papers by Gėlėgzhamt︠s︡yn Luvsant︠s︡ėrėn on Mādhyamika, Buddhist philosophy, Mongolian philosophy and Buddhist studies in Mongolia.

In Alabaster v. Barclays Bank plc and Secretary of State for Social Security (No. 2: [2005] E.W.C.A Civ. 508, [2005] I.R.L.R. 576.) Michelle Alabaster won a grand total of £204.53 (plus £65.86 interest) after eight years of litigation, which included two visits to the Court of Appeal and one to the European Court of Justice. This marathon resulted from the sex discrimination which Alabaster had alleged in relation to the calculation of her Statutory Maternity Pay (S.M.P.) whilst she was pregnant (...) 10 years earlier. The technicalities of the statutory schemes involved should not be allowed to disguise the important principle which finally emerges in the Court of Appeal and which underlines one of the longstanding criticisms of the equality legislation, namely the requirement that a woman must compare herself with a man in order to establish unlawful sex discrimination. (shrink)

A moving cultural biography of abolitionist martyr John Brown, by one of the most important African-American intellectuals of the twentieth century. In the history of slavery and its legacy, John Brown looms large as a hero whose deeds partly precipitated the Civil War. As Frederick Douglass wrote: "When John Brown stretched forth his arm... the clash of arms was at hand." DuBois's biography brings Brown stirringly to life and is a neglected classic.

In this brief paper, offered as a policy viewpoint, I introduce what I believe to be a novel concept for supporting individual citizen interaction with the U.S. Federal government, termed the individual social account. I explore whether and how the concept might be implemented so as to strengthen the U.S. social safety net and further citizen trust and responsibility in e-government interactions. I illustrate and develop the concept as a platform for reform and suggest and discuss design criteria, surfacing various (...) issues. I conclude with additional thoughts with which to stimulate further research and discussion of the concept and its practicalities. (shrink)

Durkheim écrit ce livre avec un but double : d'abord il voulait expliquer ce qui crée une société, ce qui la tient ensemble ; ensuite il voulait éclaircir l'influence qu'a la société sur la pensée logique. Pour Durkheim, la religion est la clé utilisée pour déverrouiller ces deux problématiques.Dans ce livre, Durkheim argumente que les représentations religieuses sont en fait des représentations collectives : l'essence du religieux ne peut être que le sacré. Il est une caractéristique qui se trouve universellement (...) dans toutes les religions. Le sacré, être collectif et impersonnel, représente ainsi la société elle-même. Ensuite il argumente que la société a un impact majeur dans la genèse de la pensée logique. C'est la société qui fournit à l'individu les catégories (le temps, l'espace, le nombre etc.) et les concepts nécessaires pour la pensée logique. (shrink)

É bem conhecida a oposição estabelecida por Kant entre experiência possível e dialética, na medida em que esta última é caracterizada como a “lógica da ilusão”. Ao mesmo tempo, o modo de pensar metafísico, que ocorre dialeticamente, em sentido kantiano, é uma tendência inevitável da razão, expressa na exigência formal de completude das categorias. Como o pensar, enquanto exercício livre da razão, é em si mesmo mais amplo do que a atividade de conhecer, própria do entendimento, o pensar contém o (...) conhecimento, embora este se qualifique pelas regras e pelos limites determinantes da objetividade. A pergunta que tentaremos formular é se essa relação continente-conteúdo não poderia configurar também uma dependência da experiência em relação ao raciocínio dialético, que estaria de algum modo indicada na função reguladora das idéias da razão. Nesse caso, a oposição formal entre conhecer e pensar seria inseparável da inclusão estrutural (dependência) da experiência no âmbito da razão. Na raiz do problema estaria talvez a tensão (dialética) entre a aspiração subjetiva de totalidade e as exigências objetivas de limitação e segmentação da experiência e a forma da experiência teria de ser finalmente concebida a partir de um fundo de inteligibilidade problemática. Dialectics and experienceThe separation of possible experience as objective knowledge and dialetics as a non-objective or non-theoretical knowledge is one of the most important aspects of kantian critical philosophy. But Kant also says that the activity of reason, as a pure thinking, has more amplitude than understanding knowledge. So we could say that theoric knowledge would depend on rational ( and non-theoretical) knowledge, as something contained in it. If we accept that, the consequence would be a relation of dependence between the form of objective knowledge and the background of a problematic – even doubtful – inteligible knowledge. (shrink)

gl. 1. Ėkofilosofii︠a︡ kak zhiznesokhrani︠a︡i︠u︡shchiĭ kulʹturnyĭ proekt -- gl. 2. Obrazy kulʹtury mira v istoriko-personologicheskom izmerenii -- gl. 3. Borʹba za mir v sovremennom mire : opyt, kont︠s︡ept︠s︡ii, modeli resheniĭ.

Em artigo inédito, Franklin Leopoldo e Silva desenvolve os sentidos da memória na produção da identidade, destacando as relações significativas do presente com o passado e o futuro na construção da história. Desse ponto, o autor acentua o papel das instituições nesse processo – um processo de exercício de poder, no qual se tem, na verdade, a institucionalização do poder – e, dentre elas, em particular a instituição universitária.

O presente artigo visa analisar, a partir do pensamento do filósofo Michel Foucault, o exercício da liberdade sob uma perspectiva ética, no âmbito do estoicismo tardio. Liberdade essa que se faz possível a partir do cuidado de si, por meio de exercícios regulares que possibilitam ao indivíduo viver a vida como arte. Com efeito, é na prática do cuidado de si, que o indivíduo se coloca como transformador do mundo e de si mesmo, o qual dá-se no encontro com o (...) outro, longe de ser uma experiência solitária com o próprio eu, realiza-se na associação com outrem. (shrink)

Neste livro Gombrich discute as idéias e as posturas específicas que tiveram influência decisiva na prática da arte renascentista. Todos os estudos aqui reunidos tratam de algo a que se pode chamar clima renascentista de opiniões sobre a arte, além da influência desse clima sobre a prática e a crítica da arte.