This paper deals with axiomatization problems for varieties of residuated meet semilattice-ordered monoids. An internal characterization of the finitely subdirectly irreducible RSs is proved, and it is used to investigate the varieties of RSs within which the finitely based subvarieties are closed under finite joins. It is shown that a variety has this closure property if its finitely subdirectly irreducible members form an elementary class. A syntactic characterization of this hypothesis is proved, and examples are discussed.

CRS(fc) denotes the variety of commutative residuated semilattice-ordered monoids that satisfy (x ⋀ e)k ≤ (x ⋀ e)k+1. A structural characterization of the subdi-rectly irreducible members of CRS(k) is proved, and is then used to provide a constructive approach to the axiomatization of varieties generated by positive universal subclasses of CRS(k).

"Neofunctionalism and After" brings together for the first time in one volume all of Alexander's writings on neofunctionalism, the present volume also contains ...

A simple tool is provided to assist researchers in assessing contributions to a scientific publication, for ease in evaluating which contributors qualify for authorship, and in what order the authors should be listed. The tool identifies four phases of activity leading to a publication—Conception and Design, Data Acquisition, Analysis and Interpretation, and Manuscript Preparation. By comparing a project participant’s contribution in a given phase to several specified thresholds, a score of up to five points can be assigned; the contributor’s scores (...) in all four phases are summed to yield a total “contribution score”, which is compared to a threshold to determine which contributors merit authorship. This tool may be useful in a variety of contexts in which a systematic approach to authorial credit is desired. (shrink)

Among the general features of modern Western discourse is a marked emphasis on the individual self. The nearly total displacement of the linguistic practice of referring to individuals as 'souls' when speaking philosophically, by the use of the terms 'selves' or 'subjects', is one sign of the modern proclivity for acknowledging the self-conscious and reflexive aspects of human experience. However, the conceptions of self and subject that have been inherited in the past few hundred years of Western philosophical thought have (...) been increasingly called into question. One source of this recent reevaluation of our modern conceptions of the self is associated with post-structuralist critiques, now several decades old, of .. (shrink)

Guided by photographer Jeff Jones's sure and well-developed vision, Arctic Sanctuary leads the reader on a remarkable journey that few of us will ever take in real life: a trek deep into Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. By turns celebratory and contemplative, emotionally evocative and beautifully fierce, this collection of lyrical essays and stunning panoramic photographs pays homage to a vast and remote land that remains untamed by technology and undisturbed by human development. A rare window into a world that (...) is whole, ecologically intact, and still driven by ancient evolutionary energies, Arctic Sanctuary invites us to examine our own ideas of the wilderness ethic in the modern world. (shrink)

Though virtually all philosophers agree that a sentence like ‘Every bachelor is a bachelor’ expresses a logical truth, there is some disagreement as to whether ‘Every bachelor is unmarried’ does. One way of addressing the question as to whether ‘Every bachelor is unmarried’ expresses a logical truth is to ask whether the source of the necessity of ‘Every bachelor is a bachelor’ is the same as the source of the necessity of ‘Every bachelor is unmarried’. Assuming the framework of the (...) theory of structured propositions, the question of whether the propositions expressed by these two sentences have their necessity in the same source is addressed. The view that the source of necessity is the same in the two cases is rejected, and an alternative view is sketched. (shrink)

Social theory between progress and apocalypse -- Autonomy and domination: Weber's cage -- Barbarism and modernity: Eisenstadt's regret -- Integration and justice: Parsons' utopia -- Despising others: Simmel's stranger -- Meaning evil -- De-civilizing the civil sphere -- Psychotherapy as central institution -- The frictions of modernity and their possible repair.

The concept of ontogenetic niche is used here to interpret how species-typical behaviors develop through active, context-dependent processes. Ontogenetic niches typically include social stimuli, such as those arising from parents, siblings, and others that provide 'nurturing' in the form of resources, stimulation, and affordances for development. This approach is a useful alternative to wrestling with artificial dichotomies such as nature-nurture.

This article examines a key question emerging from the strong program in cultural sociology — can art provide a window into social life? An examination of Giacometti's Standing Woman shows that art attempts to express cultural structures via immersion into and through the material surfaces of aesthetic form. Through an analysis of the iconic significance of family photos, furniture and celebrities, the article goes on to suggest that such iconic experience remains at the basis of contemporary social life. It explains (...) how we feel part of our surroundings, how we experience the ties that bind us to the people we know and how we develop a feeling for cultural hierarchy. (shrink)

Scott McQuire _Visions of Modernity_ London: Sage Publications, 1998 ISBN 0-7619-5301-9 270 pp.

A series of reflections on Laplanche and Pontalis's Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse, one of the precursor volumes of the Dictionary of Untranslatables, and specifically on Laplanche's effort to glean the most important lessons to be culled from that speculative volume on the translation of German into French. Laplanche, in Vie et mort en psychanalyse, posits that, until one gauges the significance of the chiasmus structuring the evolution of Freud's metapsychology, the sense of Freud's discovery will not have been grasped. In (...) this essay, the translator of Vie et mort uncovers the chiasmus that structures the evolution of Laplanche's own thought and reflects on the role which that figure has played in his own career as a critic. (shrink)

This essay concerns various difficulties encountered in the attempt to assess the relation between Heidegger and Nietzsche. More specifically, those difficulties are due to the notion and function of repetition in the texts of both Heidegger and Nietzsche. I attempt to provide an analysis of repetition in the Heidegger of Being and Time and surrounding texts (e.g., Plato’s Sophist and Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie). Following this attempt, I then examine the transformed notion of repetition operative in the now famous text (...) written at the time of the Nietzsche lectures, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), a repetition that goes by the name of crossing (Übergang). In my presentation of crossing, I attempt to draw Heidegger and Nietzsche together through the repetition of crossing and that of eternal recurrence of the same. Finally, I argue that what draws Heidegger and Nietzsche together is also what prevents us from distinguishing them in any traditional way, a distinction that could then be followed by any number of judgments regarding historical influence. That is, that what draws the two to thinking is what both draws them together, which is abyssal repetition, and problematizes any attempt to distinguish them. (shrink)

As social theorists seek to understand the contemporary challenges of radical populism, we would do well to reconsider the febrile insights of the psychoanalytic social theorist Erich Fromm. It was Fromm who, at the beginning of the 1930s, conceptualized the emotional and sociological roots of a new ‘authoritarian character’ who was meek in the face of great power above and ruthless to the powerless below. It was Fromm, in the 1950s, who argued that societies, not only individuals, could be sick. (...) This essay traces the intertwining of psychoanalytic and sociological methods that allowed Fromm to create such new ideas. At the same time, it highlights how Fromm’s sociology was hampered by an economistic Marxist approach to the institutions and culture of democratic capitalist societies. Such theoretical restriction prevented Fromm from conceptualizing how institutions like democracy, science, and psychotherapy can provide resources for widespread emotional recuperation and civil repair. (shrink)

We identify the significance and typical requirements of developmental analyses of the microbiome-gut-brain in parents, offspring, and parent-offspring relations, which have particular importance for neurobehavioral outcomes in mammalian species, including humans. We call for a focus on behavioral measures of social-emotional function. Methodological approaches to interpreting relations between the microbiota and behavior are discussed.

Avant-garde theatre is often invoked as the bellwether for a society that has become postdramatic – fragmented, alienated, and critical of efforts to create collectively shared meanings. A theatre whose sequenced actions have no narrative (so the story goes) mirrors a social world where the most conflictual situations no longer appear as drama but merely as spectacle: a society where audiences look on without any feeling or connection. Because only half right, these theses about postdramatic theatre and society are fundamentally (...) wrong. As modern societies have expanded and differentiated, the elements that compose performances have become separated and often fragmented in both theatre and society. If they can be brought back together again, performances are viewed as authentic and meaningful. If (re)fusion cannot be achieved, performances fail to communicate meaning. The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that a shared ambition to (re)fuse fragmented performative elements has defined the most important strain of avant-garde theatre over the last two centuries. Most radical theatrical innovation has sought to open live drama back up to the telos of myth and ritual. Neither in theatre nor social life can the world transcend dramaturgy; it is fundamental to the search for meaning in a world beyond cosmological religion. (shrink)