Dans un monde aussi chaotique que celui où chacun essaie de trouver sa place en ce début de XXIe siècle, la notion de civilisation peine à s'inscrire dans la réalité et, à plus forte raison, à véhiculer la connotation de progrès. Faut-il pour autant perdre espoir? Après avoir recensé les turpitudes de la société néolibérale mondialisée, l'auteur explore quelques pistes simples vers un monde meilleur, dans lequel, entre autres, la devise de notre République, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, trouverait enfin son véritable (...) sens, et chaque vie son rôle à jouer, l'économie et l'argent seraient mis au service de l'homme et non l'inverse, et promues les véritables valeurs humanistes et les anciennes sagesses. L'auteur insiste notamment sur les formes d'influence et de pouvoir à la portée des femmes, d'où viendra peut-être, grâce à la féminisation des moeurs, une humanité enfin digne de ce nom. (shrink)

The mental system of an individual usually generates a reality-model that includes a self-model and a world-model as fundamental components. Exceptional experiences (ExE) can be classified as subjectively experienced anomalies in the self-model or the world-model or in the relation of both. Empirical studies show significant correlations between specific patterns of ExE and socially and clinically relevant variables. In order to examine the ontological status of anomalous phenomena a psychophysical approach is presented in which the principle of complementarity is of (...) fundamental importance. Applying a generalized quantum theory to psychosocial and psychophysical systems, complementary aspects such as autonomy versus reliability or novelty versus confirmation are identified as possible local and global variables. The findings indicate that entanglement correlations could play a role in the occurrence of ExE and that specific psychological interventions can dissolve them. (shrink)

Als "Wissenschaft des Regierens" und "Kunst der Verwaltung" definiert ein Lexikon aus dem 18. Jahrhundert die Politik, 2000 Jahre früher machte Aristoteles das "glückselige und edle Leben" als Zweck des Staates aus. Ein Blick auf die Rituale der Berliner Republik zeigt, wie weit sich die praktische Politik von diesen Idealen entfernt hat: Es geht weniger um die Glückseligkeit der Bürger als um Parteienproporz und Lobbyinteressen, das zähe Ringen um Reformen hat mit großer Kunst wenig gemeinsam. Wie es trotzdem immer wieder (...) gelingt, die Fiktion einer idealen Politik aufrechtzuerhalten, ist das Thema der Studie von Wolfgang Fach: Charismatische Persönlichkeiten "veredeln" die graue Routine, demokratische Wahlen sollen das politische Tagesgeschäft "reinigen". Wo diese Verfahren nicht weiterhelfen, muß die Politik neu erfunden werden. (shrink)

Nicole Shukin pursues a resolutely materialist engagement with the "question of the animal," challenging the philosophical idealism that has dogged the question by tracing how the politics of capital and of animal life impinge on one ...

Parfois, nous nous entendons dire : "J'ai le pressentiment que quelque chose va arriver". Certains appellent cela une pré-cognition. D'autres, plus stoïques, y voient non une fatalité, mais une marque de la destinée. Mais quelle est la nature de ce quelque chose? Est-il tellement indéterminé et inessentiel que le philosophe a l'impression de perdre son temps à essayer de le penser? Le "quelque chose" résiste à la pensée, il pose problème.

A heterogeneous survey sample of for-profit, non-profit and government employees revealed that organizational factors but not personal characteristics were significant antecedents of misconduct and job satisfaction. Formal organizational compliance practices and ethical climate were independent predictors of misconduct, and compliance practices also moderated the relationship between ethical climate and misconduct, as well as between pressure to compromise ethical standards and misconduct. Misconduct was not predicted by level of moral reasoning, age, sex, ethnicity, job status, or size and type of organization. (...) Demographic variables predicted job satisfaction and organizational variables added significant incremental variance. Results suggest the importance of promoting a moral organization through the words and actions of senior managers and supervisors, independent of formal mechanisms such as codes of conduct. (shrink)

Die moderne Samenbank lässt sich mit Medienbegriffen beschreiben, von Bestand bis Infrastruktur. Stets bleibt als blinder Fleck die Medialität des Samens, dessen Vitalität im Dunkel der Kühlkammer künstlich verlängert wird. Der Beitrag diskutiert Varianten, das Problem der Teleologie der Natur in Medienbegriffen abzuhandeln und bietet eine neue Geschichte von ›den Bienen und den Blumen‹. Er hebt den Samen als Inbegriff einer nicht reduzierbaren Substanz hervor, dessen Latenz als mediales Apriori des Lebenden begreifbar wird. A modern sperm bank can actually be (...) described by using media terms such as ›stock‹ or ›infrastructure‹. However, the mediality of sperm seems to be persistently lingering in a blind spot, its vitality artificially prolonged in the dark of the cooling chamber. This article discusses different variants to treat the problem of describing the teleology of nature with the help of media terms and offers a new take on the story of ›the birds and the bees‹. The argumentation stresses the importance of sperm as the very quintessence of a non-reducible substance whose latency as a medial a priori of life thus becomes palpable. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice, as a species of epistemic injustice, is when members of marginalized groups are unable to make their experiences communicatively intelligible due to a deficiency in collective hermeneutical resources, where this deficiency is traditionally interpreted as a lack of concepts. Against this understanding, this paper argues that even if adequate concepts that describe marginalized groups’ experiences are available within the collective hermeneutical resources, hermeneutical injustice can persist. This paper offers an analysis of how this can happen by introducing the (...) notion of hermeneutical excess: the introduction of additional concepts into collective hermeneutical resources that function to obscure agents’ understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The injustice of hermeneutical excesses happens not due to hermeneutical marginalization (the exclusion of members of marginalized groups from the construction of hermeneutical resources), but rather hermeneutical domination: when members of dominant groups have been inappropriately included in the construction of hermeneutical resources. By taking as exemplary cases the concepts of “reverse racism” and “non-consensual sex” this paper shows how such excesses are introduced as a kind of defensive strategy used by dominant ideologies precisely when progress with social justice is made. (shrink)

During the fifteenth century the organic body politic metaphor was gradually associated or superseded by a physiological paradigm built on the ancient humoral theory. The new body politic, based on humours rather than on organs, eventually became a dynamic and fluid entity. Authors such as Nicole Oresme or Jean Gerson alleged that the etiology of humoral imbalance had its origins in growing social inequalities; Claude de Seyssel subsequently urged that the cure to restore the humoral balance should focus on (...) creating new hope and bridges for the gifted. Seyssel was able to draw up his pioneering manifesto for social mobility thanks to the new physiological image of the civic body. The present study argues that such a physiological conception transformed anxiety about motion and disarray into a belief that social fluidity was indispensable to the well-being and health of the whole body, but the idea that (social) order and movements are not conflicting, was soon eradicated by new perspectives on nobility constructed on race and blood. (shrink)

Se ofrece la versión en español de la «Einführung» –Introducción– que el lector alemán, suizo, austriaco, o lichtensteiniano encuentra antepuesta a la traducción del ensayo de filosofía de la cultura de Gustavo Bueno. Der Mythos der Kultur, Essay einer materialistischen Kulturphilosophie ha sido publicado por la editorial Peter Lang en febrero de 2002.

There is a growing realisation that the current upward trend in levels of disclosure of social, ethical and environmental performance by corporations and other organisations is not being accompanied by simultaneous greater levels of public trust. Low levels of confidence in the information communicated in public reporting is probably undermining the impetus for this disclosure. This article suggests that this credibility gap can be narrowed through the use of third party independent assurance. However, this is not an unqualified panacea. Much (...) verification and assurance practice itself has to date been of questionable robustness, reliability and consistency, and has been framed by financial assurance models that are inadequate for the broader, qualitative dimensions of social, ethical and environmental performance. The paper argues that there is need for a universal standard for the provision of assurance of social, ethical and environmental reporting, and indeed for the credibility of the assurance providers themselves. The new AA1000S Assurance Standard, developed by the Institute of Social and Ethical AccountAbility, offers an approach and a tool for addressing these gaps. (shrink)

Fred Adams and collaborators advocate a view on which empty-name sentences semantically encode incomplete propositions, but which can be used to conversationally implicate descriptive propositions. This account has come under criticism recently from Marga Reimer and Anthony Everett. Reimer correctly observes that their account does not pass a natural test for conversational implicatures, namely, that an explanation of our intuitions in terms of implicature should be such that we upon hearing it recognize it to be roughly correct. Everett argues that (...) the implicature view provides an explanation of only some of our intuitions, and is in fact incompatible with others, especially those concerning the modal profile of sentences containing empty names. I offer a pragmatist treatment of empty names based upon the recognition that the Gricean distinction between what is said and what is implicated is not exhaustive, and argue that such a solution avoids both Everett's and Reimer's criticisms. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power (...) is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Stability is at the core of every discussion of order, organization or institutionalization. From an »inside« perspective, the stability of each order-constituting element is assumed. In contrast, in critical discourses instability is located at the outside of the social order as its negative. By treating this argumentative symmetrical structure as »idioms of stability and de-stabilization«, the articles try to rethink order: How can we describe structures from a perspective in which instability, non-control and irrationality are not contrary to ordering systems, (...) but contribute to their stability? How might the notions of identity, knowledge and institution in social and cultural studies be contested by this change of perspective? (shrink)

Nicole Hassoun here makes a philosophical argument for health, and access to essential medicines, as essential human rights, and she proposes the Global Health Impact system as a way to ensure those rights. She reports how life-saving medicines are inaccessible and costly for the global poor, and that rather than focusing on treatments for critical, deadly global health problems, pharmaceutical companies instead invest in more profitable drugs. To address this problem, Hassoun's proposal will rate pharmaceutical companies based on their (...) medicines' impact on the improvement of global health, and will reward highly-rated medicines with a Global Health Impact label. (shrink)

Dieser Essay behandelt das Phanomen der doppelten Belastung von Frauen, die zugleich "ihren" Haushalt in Ordnung halten und einem "normalen" Beruf nachgehen (wollen/miissen).Er konzentriert sich auf zwei Seiten einer dialektischen Situation: einmal das naheliegende Faktum, daB eine zweifache Belastung die Arbeitshetze intensiviert, den StreB intensiviert und die freie Zeit so weit "auffriBt", daB ein humanes Leben ausgeschlossen bleibt: die Not der Tugend; zum andern der weniger leicht zugangliche, gleichwohl reale Sachver halt, daB Belastungen auch Herausforderungen darstellen, Bewiih rungs proben mit (...) der Chance zu personlicher Entwicklung und strate gischer Entfaltung: die Tugend der Not. Beide Seiten gehOren untrennbar zusammen. Wie ihr Verhaltnis im einzel nen verlauft, ist eine offene Frage. Vermutlich folgt es jener "Laffer-Kur ve", die einige Zeit lang in der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Diskussion eine Rolle spielte: d.h., bis zu einem gewissen Maximum fordern zusatzli che Belastungen die Entfaltung der Personlichkeit; was dariiber hinausgeht, lost regressive Veranderungen aus. Den Umschlagpunkt galte es theoretisch zu bestimmen und praktisch zu stabilisieren. (shrink)

Fiona Nicoll and Melissa Gregg met on the job at a new university having both moved from Sydney to Brisbane to take up their appointments. Here they share reflections on teaching a cultural theory course that they inherited from a prominent Australian Professor of Cultural Studies, offering the perspectives of two consecutive generations of cultural studies theorists now teaching in the field since the early 1990s. This situation gives rise to new interpretations regarding the value and uses of theory in (...) the classroom. Noting the subtle differences involved in teaching the same theoretical material in different cities, the ironies of teaching radical cultural theory in a conservative institutional environment, and the specific opportunities and challenges of teaching cultural studies theory as opposed to others, the article considers some of the silences teachers must also contend with in their classroom practice, drawing on and expanding the terrain established by Thorkelson's thesis. (shrink)

This book offers advice to academics on building resilience and resistance to forces that undermine well-being by drawing on ancient wisdom traditions, indigenous cultures, Jungian psychology, and contemplative practices from around the world.

Direct brain intervention based mental capacity restoration techniques-for instance, psycho-active drugs-are sometimes used in criminal cases to promote the aims of justice. For instance, they might be used to restore a person's competence to stand trial in order to assess the degree of their responsibility for what they did, or to restore their competence for punishment so that we can hold them responsible for it. Some also suggest that such interventions might be used for therapy or reform in criminal legal (...) contexts-i.e. to make non-responsible and irresponsible people more responsible. However, I argue that such interventions may at least sometimes fail to promote these responsibility-related legal aims. This is because responsibility hinges on other factors than just what mental capacities a person has-in particular, it also hinges on such things as authenticity, personal identity, and mental capacity ownership-and some ways of restoring mental capacity may adversely affect these other factors. Put one way, my claim is that what might suffice for the restoration of competence need not necessarily suffice for the restoration of responsibility, or, put another way, that although responsibility indeed tracks mental capacity it may not always track restored mental capacities. (shrink)

Within a state-space approach endowed with a generalized potential function, mental states can be systematically characterized by their stability against perturbations. This approach yields three major classes of states: (1) asymptotically stable categorial states, (2) marginally stable non-categorial states and (3) unstable acategorial states. The particularly interesting case of states giving rise to exceptional experiences will be elucidated in detail. Their proper classification will be related to Metzinger’s account of self-model and world-model, and empirical support for this classification will be (...) surveyed. Eventually, it will be outlined how Metzinger’s discussion of intentionality achieves pronounced significance within a dual-aspect framework of thinking. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalists about logic maintain that it is continuous with the empirical sciences. Taking anti-exceptionalism for granted, we argue that traditional approaches to explanation are inadequate in the case of logic. We argue that Andrea Woody's functional analysis of explanation is a better fit with logical practice and accounts better for the explanatory role of logical theories.

This paper presents a holistic, contextualised case study of reintegration and trust repair at a UK utilities firm in the wake of its fraud and data manipulation scandal. Drawing upon conceptual frameworks of reintegration and organizational trust repair, we analyze the decisions and actions taken by the company in its efforts to restore trust with its stakeholders. The analysis reveals seven themes on the merits of proposed approaches for reintegration after an integrity violation , and novel insights on the role (...) of organizational identity, “changing of the guard” and cultural reforms alongside procedural modifications. The case further supports the dynamic nature of stakeholder salience across the reintegration process. The study both supports propositions from existing frameworks and suggests novel theoretical extensions for future research. (shrink)

The notion that the idea of nature isnot quite the unbiased rule to designsustainable futures is obvious. But,nevertheless, questions about nature, how itfunctions and what it might aim at, is leadingthe controversial debates about bothsustainability and biotechnology. These tworesearch areas hardly have the same theorybackground. Whereas in the first concept, theidea of eternal cyclical processes is basic,the latter focuses on optimization. However,both concepts can work together, but only undera narrow range of public acceptance in Europe.The plausibility of arguments for usingbiotechnology (...) within sustainable technologiesvaries according to the assumed part natureitself plays for reaching optimized states. Theculture related vision of nature's functionshas impact on agricultural biotechnology,dealing not only with food crops but also withnon-food plants like renewable resources thatare used for energy or fiber production. Theseplants are grown to reach sustainabledevelopment. However, there is a fundamentaldifference between regarding biofuels as``renewable'' and ``regenerative,'' due to thetension between the concepts of ``the natural''and ``the sustainable.'' Arguments ofoptimization, efficiency, and efficacy arecritically discussed in order to take thepresent need for sustainable technologies forserious. (shrink)

Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label “neuroscience”; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks—at least one for each responsibility concept—and, I will suggest, (...) a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question. (shrink)

The role of research ethics committees, and research ethics issues more broadly are often not viewed in the context of the development of scientific methods and the academic community. This topic piece seeks to redress this gap. I begin with a brief outline of the changes we experience within the social sciences before exploring in more detail their impact on research ethics and the practices of research ethics committees. I conclude with recommendations for how the existing research ethics processes may (...) be made more future-proof. (shrink)

Invertebrate research ethics has largely been ignored compared to the consideration of higher order animals, but more recent focus has questioned this trend. Using the robotic control of Aurelia aurita as a case study, we examine ethical considerations in invertebrate work and provide recommendations for future guidelines. We also analyze these issues for prior bioethics cases, such as cyborg insects and the ‘microslavery’ of microbes. However, biohybrid robotic jellyfish pose further ethical questions regarding potential ecological consequences as ocean monitoring tools, (...) including the impact of electronic waste in the ocean. After in-depth evaluations, we recommend that publishers require brief ethical statements for invertebrate research, and we delineate the need for invertebrate nociception studies to revise or validate current standards. These actions provide a stronger basis for the ethical study of invertebrates, with implications for individual, species-wide, and ecological impacts, as well as for studies in science, engineering, and philosophy. (shrink)