Contemporary architecture is increasingly grounded in science and mathematics. Architectural discourse has shifted radically from the sometimes disorienting Derridean deconstruction, to engaging scientific terms such as fractals, chaos, complexity, nonlinearity, and evolving systems. That's where the architectural action is -- at least for cutting-edge architects and thinkers -- and every practicing architect and student needs to become conversant with these terms and know what they mean. Unfortunately, the vast majority of architecture faculty are unprepared to explain them to students, not (...) having had a scientific education themselves. Here is an architecture book by an architect/scientist, just in time to help architects in the new millennium. Alexander discusses many of the scientific terms arising in cutting-edge architecture, and explains them to those who don't have scientific training or advanced mathematical knowledge. We find discussions of the evolution of forms; the importance of process in design; iteration; genetic algorithms; sequences of transformations; different levels of scale (i.e. fractals); etc. They are explained here by an architect who is also a scientist, because he wants to change the way architects think and build. Alexander is not merely popularizing other scientists' results and making them accessible to architects: he is in fact presenting new and original scientific work that ties many of these concepts together in a way that will be useful to architects. (shrink)

Mindfulness as a clinical and nonclinical intervention for a variety of symptoms has recently received a substantial amount of interest. Although the application of mindfulness appears straightforward and its effectiveness is well supported, the concept may easily be misunderstood. This misunderstanding may severely limit the benefit of mindfulness-based interventions. It is therefore necessary to understand that the characteristics of mindfulness are based on a set of seemingly paradoxical structures. This article discusses the underlying paradox by disentangling it into five dialectical (...) positions - activity vs. passivity, wanting vs. non-wanting, changing vs. non-changing, non-judging vs. non-reacting, and active acceptance vs. passive acceptance, respectively. Finally, the practical implications for the medical professional as well as potential caveats are discussed. (shrink)

Free Speech in the Balance is the first comprehensive study of proportional analysis in free speech theory. This book challenges the US Supreme Court's categorical approach and explains the importance of understanding the breadth of concerns arising from regulations directly and indirectly impacting expression. The author provides in-depth analysis of some of the important social and political principles governing topics of vital concern, including campaign financing, university speech codes, secondary school rules, incitement, and threats. This book should be read by (...) students and scholars of free speech theory and anyone interested in learning more about the history of existing law, the issues of current importance, and trends in expressive significance. (shrink)

The rise of modernity in the 19th century can, among other things, be vividly illustrated by the phenomenal advance of medical profession and, in particular, surgery as its most radical form. In the 20th century, the doctor has already been steadily associated with the phenomenon of power. Medical experiments on human subjects are generally recognized as one of the most extreme manifestations of this discursive nexus. Despite considerable amount of historical research, predominantly dealing with the experiences of Nazi medicine and (...) its patients in concentration camps and some other disciplinary institutions, as well as somewhat gloomy attraction providing for unabated fascination on the part of trivial literature, such experiments have not yet become an established literary topos. The elusive nature of this phenomenon which belongs to the kern of post-war anxiety, but is rarely addressed to, allows me to attest to the fact that human experiments, especially those conducted in Nazi concentration camps, have become a cultural «exclusion zone». Nonetheless, there is a whole range of texts in which attempts has been made to overcome the cultural taboo and to give voice to the victims of human vivisection. Two of them – Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Suspicion and Marcel Beyers The Flying Foxes – are analyzed in this paper against the backdrop of the so called «intellectual witness» – a concept proposed by Geoffrey Hartman and meaning a distanced witnessing, mostly on behalf of younger generations or, as in case with Dürrenmatt, of those who stayed aside of the World War II. In both novels, the narrative structures of intellectual witnessing serve to surmount the metaphorizing tendency which turns the reality of human experiments into tropes corroborating the author’s idea or concept. Combining documentary elements with the elements of trivial fiction, Dürrenmatt and Beyer make significant strides in deconstructing the naïve «over-identifying» with the victims, as well as their overt fictionalization. As a result, they manage to open the possibility of witness beyond the perspective of eyewitnesses, and at the same time subjugate this rearticulation of the past to the demands of the present situation that facilitates it. This perilous duality reveals the ethical double bind which seems to be inherent to the most reactualizations of utterly traumatic historical experiences, such as human experimentation, transformed into «exclusion zones» and then voiced through intellectual witness and other forms of «secondary witness». In order to become an object of witnessing, those traumatic experiences must correspond to the anxieties of the present originating from them. While triggering the reactualization process, such anxieties, however, also subject the experience of concrete victims to the desiderata of a traumatized «(intellectual) witness» and, in such a way, misuse the tragedy as a means of the witness’s coming to terms with his or her own trauma. (shrink)

Jennifer Lackey argues that knowing that p is not sufficient for being epistemically properly positioned to assert that p. Where that knowledge is entirely second-hand and the subject is an expert, the subject is not properly positioned to make such an assertion—since experts are held to higher epistemic standards. We reject Lackey’s argument. In particular, we argue that the division of labour in science makes isolated, second-hand assertions by experts both inevitable and frequent.

The article discusses the features of landscape philosophy, as well as the prospects of its practical application to analyze the crises of modern society associated with the scientific and technological revolution, globalization and the massification of culture. The concept of landscape becomes particularly important in connection with the urban turn in philosophy. The analysis given in this article has shown that landscape philosophy explains the negative characteristics of colonial cognition. The interpretation of the concept of space in landscape philosophy is (...) considered. Following S. Goryainov, we consider landscape philosophy as a philosophy of crisis. Our analysis has shown that landscape philosophy contributes to the approbation of models for solving the crisis of language and mind. Landscape philosophy and philosophical anthropology reveal existential problems. The works of M. de Unamuno, M. Scheler, M. Foucault and V. Podoroga were analyzed in this context. The significance of Unamuno's philosophy for the analysis of the role of individual creative space in the contemporary world is revealed. The applicability of Scheler's concept of spirit for the analysis of the problems of landscape philosophy is revealed. It is proved that within the framework of Podoroga's landscape philosophy, the problem of the correlation of politics and political. Using the concepts of utopia, atopia, and heterotopia, various aspects of the crisis of contemporary man man associated with the transformation of the subject's identity, the fragmentation of meanings and significance are studied. Thus, Podoroga's works are valuable for crisis philosophy because they analyze both spatial and political aspects of the crisis of contemporary society. Podoroga's works make it possible to reflect the contradictions of contemporary society, which ensures the prospects of their application for the analysis of changes in the contemporary social space. (shrink)

Religion und Vervollkommnung – des Einzelnen wie der Kirche bzw. der Christenheit – sind eng miteinander verwoben und gründen auf der Überzeugung, den Einzelnen für das Reich Gottes vorbereiten zu müssen bzw. dieses als Kirche in der Welt zu repräsentieren. Nicht zuletzt ist die asketische Tradition des Christentums im Dienst dieses Zieles zu sehen, die durch eine methodische Lebensführung den Wandel der Seele zum Guten erreichen wollte. Gnadentheologisch war dies umstritten, weil die Möglichkeit des Menschen dazu beizutragen – je nach (...) theologischer Position – unterschiedlich gewertet wurde. Je optimistischer man hinsichtlich des menschlichen Beitrags war, umso generativer waren diese Konzepte in pädagogischer Hinsicht. Die 1909 gegründete katholische Jugendbewegung Quickborn, in der Schüler/innen höherer Schulen aktiv waren, stellt ein gutes Beispiel dafür dar, wie Religion zum Mittel sittlich-religiöser Vervollkommnung wurde. Um angesichts einer rasanten Modernisierung für gebildete junge Katholiken weiterhin relevant zu bleiben, musste an aktuellen Strömungen wie dem Abstinenzideal angeknüpft werden. Dieses war in der Reformpädagogik sowie in der Lebens- und Sozialreform um 1900 im Kaiserreich sehr präsent und konnte offenbar in Verbindung mit dem Jugendmotiv neuen religiösen Enthusiasmus wecken. Der Beitrag untersucht die Motive einer Sakralisierung der Abstinenz, ihrer pädagogischen Ziele und erwarteten Wirkungen z.B. auf Körper, Seele oder Volk sowie die verschiedenen Praktiken der Selbsterziehung und fragt schließlich danach, ob in der Verbindung von Religion und Perfektion nicht Transzendenz, konkrete Humanität (H. R. Schlette), Gnade (Kontingenz) und Fragment als doch immerhin zentrale Dimensionen biblischen Christentums ausgeblendet wurden. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo explicitar a crítica que Schopenhauer faz à fundamentação da moral proposta por Kant. Para cumprir este objetivo exporemos em primeiro lugar e de forma concisa, a fundamentação da ética realizada por Kant. Depois analisaremos as críticas feitas por Schopenhauer à ética de Kant e finalizaremos indicando a alternativa de Schopenhauer em fundamentar a moral pelo sentimento da compaixão.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Human Genome Research in an Interdependent WorldAlexander Morgan Capron (bio)This has been the year of agenda-setting conferences for the ambitious ELSI (ethical, legal and social issues) program of the Human Genome Project (HGP). But of the dozen or more major meetings of this sort held across the country, the one held at the National Institutes of Heakh (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, June 2-4, 1991, was distinctive in several respects.1As (...) its name implies, "Human Genome Research in an Interdependent World" was a global look at the issues raised by gene mapping and sequencing. Unlike previous conferences, however, this meeting looked beyond a comparative analysis of clinical and domestic legal issues, and concentrated on topics that may require responses on a truly international level if they are to be successfully resolved.The meeting's organizers gathered an impressive group of more than seventy participants from fifteen countries, including the first significant contingent of Soviet and Japanese scientists, physicians, and philosophers at an ELSI meeting. In addition to talks by the heads of the genome projects in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States, the meeting was keynoted by Dr. James Wyngaarden, director general of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), and I had the honor of serving as its general chairman.The goal of the meeting was to consider an array of issues that scientists, philosophers, and lawyers from around the world suggested might have international significance, with an eye to deciding three things: (1) Does the issue deserve further attention? (2) Is the issue best addressed in an international or domestic context? and (3) Do structures exist to which the issue can be referred for resolution? In the final sessions, the entire group debated proposed resolutions on the various topics and narrowed the list needing further, intensive exploration.To provide an international framework for this process, the conference [End Page 247] established a Global Steering Committee on Ethical and Social Issues in Genome Research, which will coordinate the efforts of several task forces charged with refining the tentative resolutions adopted by the conference participants on June 4. The task forces are expected to be able to complete work on some topics by the time of the steering committee's first meeting, which was described by one participant as a "check point," probably within the coming year; on other topics, the task forces will provide interim reports and arrange to continue their analysis. Several topics—less complex or more embryonic—were referred directly to the steering committee. On all issues, a major objective will be to ascertain what existing or newly created structure or structures are capable of implementing the group's recommendations and then to monitor the issue to ensure that appropriate implementation is occurring.Issues to be Explored by Task ForcesInsurance and EmploymentWhile individuals may derive medically useful information from the expanded range of genetic tests that will flow from the HGP, they could also be harmed if test results become a basis for discrimination. An area of particular concern at the conference in Bethesda was whether genetic information should be used to decide eligibility for employment or the scope and cost of health and life insurance. The complexity of this issue is increased as barriers to worker migration fall (especially in Europe) and as more firms carry on business internationally. Furthermore, questions arise about the limits of required testing and whether individuals may decline to be informed of the results of tests.The task force will not only gather information on practices and legal standards throughout the world—especially in light of the differences among nations with regard to the linkage of employment and various forms of insurance—but will also examine international anti-discrimination laws as a possible means of supplementing domestic statutes and regulations. As a starting point, the Bethesda meeting agreed on a set of principles for the task force to refine.2ForensicsAlthough their legal status is not fully resolved, DNA tests are being used increasingly in judicial proceedings and civil and criminal investigations as a highly probative means to identify people. Most forensic uses of "DNA fingerprints" are domestic, but international cooperation among investigative bodies... (shrink)

A monosexual configuration of sexuality assumes that sexual desire is directed at either men or women. Bisexuality resists a choice between oppositional categories and is often theorised as having a transgressive potential to destabilise binary logic, not only in relation to sexuality but also to gender. There is, however, a lack of empirical work exploring how this potential might be realised in the accounts of bisexual individuals. Drawing on interviews with South African bisexual women, we use a narrative-discursive lens to (...) examine the discursive resources employed by participants to trouble or resist hetero-gendered norms. Our findings demonstrate how resistance to the gender binary hinges on citational politics that are fundamentally gendered and linked to sexuality. Instead of entirely destabilising hetero-gendered norms, participants draw on gendered scripts that simultaneously expand norms to accommodate their sexual difference and, through processes of othering, function to reiterate hetero-gendered norms. While complete subversion of gender binaries is not possible in participants’ discursive contexts, what does occur is a ‘slow bending’ of norms. Theorising bisexuality as transgressing oppositional categories closes off opportunities to interrogate the pervasive influence of gender binaries in contexts that remain marked by pervasive heteronormativity and heterosexism. Significantly, it also obscures more modest improvisations of gender scripts that hold potential for destabilising gender binaries. (shrink)

In describing morality as an art, I do not merely mean that there is a fine art of conduct, of which good manners are an obvious instance: the delicate adjustment of behaviour to small or subtle changes in our circumstances, the variation of our responses with differences in the age, standing, consideration of the persons with whom we talk. That there is such an art of good life is true, but it only means that in the instruments of life, as (...) with our microscopes and telescopes, there are fine as well as coarse adjustments. Nor do I mean merely that, as Plato said, living is a craft, like weaving or carpentering, and that virtue is its technique. I mean something more than an analogy; and that the best way to understand morality is to see what it has in common with fine art, and at the same time the differences which, leaving it still an art, separate it from fine art. (shrink)

Levinas a cherche a eriger l'ethique en philosophie premiere. Comment ce projet est-il conciliable avec la methode phenomenologique dont il s'est toujours inspire et dont il est reste tributaire tout au long de sa vie? L'auteur essaie d'y repondre en mettant en evidence ce qu'il appelle une phenomenologie sans phenomenalite. Celle-ci s'inscrit expressement dans la tradition de la phenomenologie transcendantale que Levinas prolonge et actualise en promouvant un concept inedit du transcendantal (concu comme conditionnement mutuel du constituant et du constitue (...) ). Au sommet de cette phenomenologie est l' epiphanie du visage, manifestation d'une alterite radicale qui confere le sens a l'apparaissant sur un mode non intentionnel et non phenomenal. C'est autour du visage que s'articulent les categories fondamentales de son parcours: jouissance, demeure, possession, feminite, amour, erotisme, fecondite, etc. Le present ouvrage qui s'appuie essentiellement sur le premier chef d'oeuvre de Levinas (Totalite et infini, paru en 1961) tente d'eclaircir ces concepts, tout en exposant les idees directrices de la philosophie levinassienne de la subjectivite, de la transcendance, du langage, du temps et de la verite. (shrink)

Social philosophy as a discipline has a number of standard research topics at its disposal, such as the search for the best form of government, the elucidation of the laws of the development of society, the problem of free will and will to power, etc., while the study of the phenomenon of fear is knocked out of this series and is not prerogative of social philosophy. However, upon closer examination, the problem of fear is extremely urgent for social philosophy, and (...) some of its aspects can be correctly interpreted only when using optics and the methodology of this field of scientific knowledge. In this article, we are talking about the peculiarities of the phenomenon of fear, which has an impact on a specific individual in particular and on society as a whole. The author strives to isolate those features that distinguish fear from the total number of problems of modern societies and to present fear as a phenomenon that can not be analyzed only with the help of the means of the natural sciences. Having these features determined, we will understand the need to examine the phenomenon of fear in studying the state of modern societies as well as social philosophy will possess the necessary tools for this analysis. (shrink)