That a symbolic object or work of art participates in what it signifies, as a part within a whole, was a controversial claim discussed with particular intensity in the wake of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment. It informed the aesthetic theories of a constellation of writers in Jena and Weimar around 1800, including Moritz, Goethe, Schelling and Hegel. Yet the twin concepts of symbol and intuition were not only tools of literary and mythological criticism: they were integral even to questions (...) of epistemology and methodology in the fields of theology, metaphysics, history and natural philosophy. The international contributors to this volume further explore how both the explanatory potential and peculiar dissatisfactions of the symbol entered the Anglo-American discourse, focusing on Coleridge, Crabb Robinson and Emerson. Contemporary debates about the claims of symbolic as opposed to allegorical art are kept in view throughout. (shrink)

In 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030 people would work only fifteen hours per week and enjoy more free time and leisure, that we would return to “principles of religion and traditional virtue,” declaring “love of money morbid, semi-criminal, and semi-pathological,” and that “we shall once more value ends above means.” But today, we do not see that this prophesy has proven true. Something must have gone wrong. We do not sufficiently know the distinction between (...) needs and wants, absolute values and relative values, what a good life is, and how to live it. In this essay, I will present and discuss ideas from Confucius, Aristotle, Zhuangzi, and the Stoics that I think are deep and meaningful and can help us free ourselves from evolutionary programming and blind belief in economic and technological growth. (shrink)

Neutron matter-wave optics provides the basis for new quantum experiments and a step towards applications of quantum phenomena. Most experiments have been performed with a perfect crystal neutron interferometer where widely separated coherent beams can be manipulated individually. Various geometric phases have been measured and their robustness against fluctuation effects has been proven, which may become a useful property for advanced quantum communication. Quantum contextuality for single particle systems shows that quantum correlations are to some extent more demanding than classical (...) ones. In this case entanglement between external and internal degrees of freedom offers new insights into basic laws of quantum physics. Non-contextuality hidden variable theories can be rejected by arguments based on the Kochen-Specker theorem. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta e interpreta a gravura De smalle en de brede Weg de Hieronymus Wierix, criada no ano de 1619 na cidade de Antuérpia, já sob domínio espanhol. O objetivo é analisar uma expressão da cultura visual religiosa católica que influenciou as Américas e o Brasil colônia e que inspirou a cultura visual evangélica brasileira, no caso, mediante a xilogravura de Charlotte Reihlen no século 19. Como método aplicam-se os três passos de interpretação de arte religiosa renascentista propostos por (...) Ernst Panofsky, a descrição pré-iconográfica, a análise iconográfica e a interpretação iconológica. Espera-se enriquecer a compreensão da cultura visual religiosa na América Latina e no Brasil, inclusive em sua transconfessionalidade, investigando seu rico fundo imaginário. (shrink)

Electronic commerce has become an important factor in present-day business. The reflection ofbusiness ethics asks four questions: - To what extent does e-commerce improve the ethical quality of decision making and performing in the sphere of commerce? - Does e-commerce promote the »reason« for business? - Does e-commerce reinforce or endanger the market's functional value principles? -Will e-commerce side-Iine or establish the ethical reflexivity of business? The present considerations will not answer definitively the above questions. Although e-commerce comprises dangers as (...) weil as opportunities relative to those questions, it is basic to hold fast at the primacy ofpolitics and consequently demand the responsibility from business toward the »needs oflife«. (shrink)

The knowledge of opinion leaders to a certain extent has always been taken for granted by communication scholars. This article investigates what opinion leaders really know. Two studies will be presented to answer the above question. Participants of the first study were assessed according to ratings on three scales of opinion leadership, personality strength and political knowledge. In the second study, respondents were assessed according to ratings of opinion leadership and political knowledge. In both studies, it was found that opinion (...) leaders can be divided into ‘informed opinion leaders’, who know a lot in their area of interest, and ‘uninformed opinion leaders’, who are ill-informed about the field they claim as theirs. In both studies ‘informed opinion leaders’ read newspapers approximately one hour longer per week than ‘uninformed opinion leaders’. (shrink)