The four volumes of this set bring together key contributions to the study of Shi’ism, giving access to material that has hitherto been scattered and difficult to locate. While the majority of the material stems from the past fifty years, earlier studies are included, providing insight into the field’s development. This collection reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of today’s Shi’ite studies. Volume One covers the birth of Shi’ism and traces its development. The emphasis is on the socio-political history of communities (...) self-identifying as Shi’ite, focusing largely on the majority ‘Twelvers’, but also covering ‘offshoot’ sects. Volume Two consists of articles which explore the theologies and philosophical ideals of Shi’ism. Particular emphasis is given to those aspects of Shi’ite orthodoxy and orthopraxy which distinguish them from the Sunni majority. Volume Three is devoted to Shi’ite law, with special reference to the evolution of ‘independent reasoning’ – the principle which underpins the inherent dynamism of Shi’ite jurisprudence and which has ensured continuation of development down to the present day. Volume Four concentrates on the development of theories of government among the Shi’ite scholarly milieu, tracing political Shi’ism from its turbulent beginnings to its pre-modern and contemporary manifestation. (shrink)

Sebastian Luft presents and defends the philosophy of culture championed by the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. Following a historical trajectory from Hermann Cohen to Paul Natorp and through to Ernst Cassirer, this book makes a systematic case for the viability and attractiveness of a philosophical culture in a transcendental vein, in the manner in which the Marburgers intended to broaden Kant's approach.

The latter half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kant’s philosophy in Continental Europe, the effects of which are still being felt today. _The Neo-Kantian Reader_ is the first anthology to collect the most important primary sources in Neo-Kantian philosophy, with many being published here in English for the first time. It includes extracts on a rich and diverse number of subjects, including logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, (...) and transcendental idealism. Sebastian Luft, together with other scholars, provides clear introductions to each of the following sections, placing them in historical and philosophical context: the beginnings of Neo-Kantianism: including the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, Otto Liebman, Friedrich Lange, and Hermann Lotze the Marburg School: including Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer the Southwest School: including Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask, and Hans Vaihinger responses and critiques: including Moritz Schlick, Edmund Husserl; Rudolf Carnap, and the 'Davos dispute' between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. The Neo-Kantian Reader is essential reading for all students of Kant, nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and phenomenology, as well as to those studying important philosophical movements such as logical positivism and analytic philosophy and its history. (shrink)

Dieses Handbuch gibt einen umfassenden Überblick über das Gesamtwerk Husserls und seinen Einfluss auf die nachfolgende Philosophie und andere Wissenschaften. Es ist gleichzeitig das erste Referenzwerk, was nicht nur Husserls veröffentlichte Schriften, sondern auch die Themen des zur Husserls Lebzeiten unveröffentlichten Nachlasses berücksichtigt.​Edmund Husserl gilt als der Begründer der Phänomenologie und als einer der wichtigsten Philosophen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Er stand jedoch lange im Schatten seiner Nachfolger wie etwa Martin Heidegger oder Jean-Paul Sartre. Etwa ab den 1990er Jahren setzte (...) eine Wendung ein, da nun Husserls unveröffentlichter Nachlass zunehmend rezipiert wird. Dabei wird deutlich, dass Husserl mit seiner Phänomenologie für die Philosophie wichtiges Neuland erschlossen sowie zu vielen traditionellen Themen der Philosophie wichtige Beiträge geleistet hat. Seine feingliedrigen Beschreibungen und Strukturbestimmungen der Erfahrung und des Bewusstseins hatten darüber hinaus bedeutende Einflüsse auf Disziplinen, wie etwa Psychologie, Anthropologie oder Soziologie. (shrink)

This article presents and discusses Sebastian Luft’s recent interpretation of Husserl’s late phenomenology. Luft argues that Husserl envisioned a hermeneutic phenomenology of the cultural world, thereby articulating a project that can be considered complementary with Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. Three of Luft’s claims, in particular, are assessed and criticized: the Cartesian Husserl and the life-world Husserl pursue two separate agendas; Husserl’s genetic phenomenology is fundamentally compatible with Paul Natorp’s project of a reconstructive psychology; Husserl’s late (...) work is oriented towards hermeneutical understanding of the world of culture. (shrink)

Alles entwickelt sich: der Kosmos mit seinen Strukturen, das Leben auf der Erde und die atemberaubend kreative Intelligenz (auch die künstliche) sowie unser Verständnis von alledem. Dieses Buch ist der menschlichen und nichtmenschlichen Natur auf der Spur. Es handelt von Grundsatzfragen der Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie, von Präzisierungen der modernen Naturphilosophie und von vielen weiteren Facetten humanistischer Kultur. Leitidee ist die Einheit des Wissens im Lichte der Evolution. -/- Gerhard Vollmer zählt mit seinen Publikationen (die meisten im Hirzel-Verlag!) zur Erkenntnis- und (...) Wissenschaftstheorie, Naturphilosophie und Metaphysik und über ein evolutionäres, naturalistisches Weltbild zu den bedeutendsten Philosophen der letzten 50 Jahre im deutschsprachigen Raum. Viel beigetragen hat er auch zum interdisziplinären Diskurs und zur Wissenschaftskommunikation – von seinem akademischen Wirken ganz zu schweigen. -/- Autoren und Themen: -/- "Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie bei Schopenhauer - eine Spurensuche" - Prof. Dr. Dieter Birnbacher ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Düsseldorf. Vizepräsident der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben sowie der Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft, Mitglied der Leopoldina. -/- "Das Realismusproblem in der Evolutionären Erkenntinstheorie" - Florian Chefai ist Direktoriumsmitglied und wissenschaftlicher Koordinator des Hans-Albert-Instituts. Studium der Philosophie und Soziologie in Trier. Seit 2020 Referent für Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit bei der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung. -/- "Evolution und Politik - oder: Wie man Türen öffnet" - Dr. Gerhard Engel ist Philosoph und Evolutionärer Humanist. 1988 Promotion im Fach Wissenschaftslehre bei Hans Albert, danach Lehrtätigkeit in Braunschweig, Mainz und Nordhausen. 2009 bis 2017 war er Präsident der Humanistischen Akademie Bayern. -/- "Auf der Suche nach der Objektivität" - Helmut Fink ist Theoretischer Physiker und Referent für Wissenschaft und Philosophie bei Kortizes – Institut für populärwissenschaftlichen Diskurs in Nürnberg. Seit 2013 Vorstandsmitglied der Heisenberg-Gesellschaft, seit 2017 Vorsitzender der Ludwig-Feuerbach-Gesellschaft. -/- "Materie und Emergenz - ein wirkungsvolles Duo" - Prof. Dr. Ernst Peter Fischer ist Wissenschaftshistoriker und -publizist. 1977 Promotion in Biologie bei Max Delbrück, 1987 Habilitation in Wissenschaftsgeschichte, danach Lehrtätigkeit in Konstanz und Heidelberg. -/- "Die Evolution als Ideengeber für eine Systematische Kreativität" - PD Dr. Dr. Ulrich Frey ist Philosoph und Ökologe. 2006 Promotion in Philosophie bei Gerhard Vollmer, 2016 Promotion zum Dr. rer. nat. bei Eckart Voland, 2017 Habilitation in Ökologie in Gießen. Forscher am Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt in Stuttgart. -/- "Die Dynamik der Ignoranz in den Wissenschaften" - Prof. Dr. Paul Hoyningen-Huene ist promovierter Theoretischer Physiker, pensionierter Professor für Theoretische Philosophie an der Leibniz Universität Hannover und Lehrbeauftragter für Wirtschaftsphilosophie an der Universität Zürich. Mitglied der Leopoldina. "KI: Neues Denkzeug oder Evolutionssprung?" - Prof. Dr. Hartmut Kliemt ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie und Ökonomik an der Frankfurt School of Finance and Management und Gastprofessor für Verhaltens- und Institutionenökonomik an der Universität Gießen. -/- "Warum manche Warum-Fragen immer wieder neu beantwortet werden" - Prof. Dr. Meinard Kuhlmann ist Wissenschaftsphilosoph im Philosophischen Seminar und im Studium Generale der Universität Mainz. 2012 bis 2021 Sprecher der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Philosophie der Physik der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft. -/- "Sind die sogenannten 'Critical Studies' Kandidaten für Pseudowissenschaften?" - Dr. Martin Mahner ist Biologe und Wissenschaftstheoretiker. Von 1999 bis 2024 leitete er das Zentrum für Wissenschaft und kritisches Denken der Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) in Roßdorf bei Darmstadt. -/- "Das Realismusproblem in der Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie" - Dr. Jonas Pöld ist Direktoriumsmitglied des Hans-Albert-Instituts. Studium der Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Literaturwissenschaft in Berlin und Münster. 2024 Promotion in Philosophie in Münster. -/- "Im Lichte der Evolution: Kultur" - Dr. Dr. Hannes Rusch ist Verhaltensökonom. Promotionen 2014 in Biologie in Gießen und 2020 in Ökonomik in München. Seit 2023 Forschungsgruppenleiter am Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Recht in Freiburg. -/- "Nietzsche und die Wissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts" - Prof. Dr. Claus-Artur Scheier ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie an der Technischen Universität Braunschweig. Arbeitsgebiete vor allem Metaphysik, Ästhetik und Deutscher Idealismus. Mitglied der Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft. -/- "Auf Epikurus Schultern - eine kurze Geschichte des Naturalismus" - Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Schmidt-Salomon ist Philosoph, Schriftsteller und Vorstandssprecher der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung für Humanismus und Aufklärung. 1997 Promotion zum Dr. phil. in Trier, 2019 Dr. h.c. der TU Liberec (Reichenberg). -/- "»Spiegel«-Leser wissen mehr – Reflexionen über Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie" - Prof. Dr. Volker Sommer ist Primatologe und Anthropologe. Seit 1996 Professor für Evolutionäre Anthropologie am University College London. Er erforscht Ökologie und Verhalten wild lebender Primaten in Afrika und Asien. -/- "Warum manche Warum-Fragen immer wieder neu beantwortet werden" - Prof. Dr. Manfred Stöckler ist Theoretischer Physiker und Philosoph. 1981 Promotion zum Dr. phil. in Gießen. 1991 bis 2017 Professor für Theoretische Philosophie mit dem Schwerpunkt Naturphilosophie und Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften an der Universität Bremen. -/- "Gerhard Vollmer als Philosophiedidaktiker – vom Lernen auf Vorrat, einer immer noch nötigen Fragekultur und dem Wert guter Beispiele" - Dr. Thomas Sukopp ist Akademischer Rat am Philosophischen Seminar, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Philosophiedidaktik, der Universität Siegen. 2006 Promotion in Philosophie bei Gerhard Vollmer, danach Lehrtätigkeit unter anderem in Braunschweig, Bamberg und Augsburg, seit 2012 in Siegen. -/- "Die Evolution des Kosmos - Zufall und Notwendigkeit im Multiversum" - Rüdiger Vaas ist Philosoph, Publizist, Astronomie- und Physikredakteur des Monatsmagazins bild der wissenschaft. Mitherausgeber mehrerer Buchreihen. Arbeitsgebiete vorwiegend Naturphilosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie der Grundlagenphysik und Kosmologie. -/- "Im Lichte der Evolution: Kultur" - Prof. Dr. Eckart Voland ist emeritierter Professor für Philosophie der Biowissenschaften an der Universität Gießen. Forschungen und Publikationen über Soziobiologie, zur historischen Demographie und evolutionären Anthropologie. -/- "Nikolaus Kopernikus - der missverstandene Astronom" - Prof. Dr. Franz Josef Wetz ist Philosoph und lehrte 1994 bis 2024 an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd. 1981 bis 1993 wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentrum für Philosophie und Grundlagen der Wissenschaft der Universität Gießen. (shrink)

Arguments for the extended mind suggest the possibility of extended knowers, individuals whose epistemic standing is tied to the operation of cognitive circuits that extend beyond the bounds of skin and skull. When applied to the Internet, this idea yields the possibility of Internet-extended knowledge, a form of extended knowledge that derives from our interactions and engagements with the online environment. This, however, yields a tension: proponents of the extended mind have suggested that cognitive extension requires the automatic endorsement of (...) bio-external content, but such a commitment appears to conflict with the need to carefully evaluate the veracity of online information. Lukas Schwengerer proposes a solution to this problem. He suggests that proponents of the extended mind ought to accept an alternative conception of the extended mind, one that allows for the evaluation of online content via the exercise of intellectual virtue. We highlight a number of problems with this proposal and suggest that further research is required before a virtue-theoretic approach to Internet-extended knowledge can be adopted. On a more positive note, we suggest that the exercise of intellectual virtue may play an important role in the developmental emergence of Internet-extended knowers. (shrink)

The Limits of Free Will presents influential articles by Paul Russell concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology, and, more recently, neuroscience. These articles were written and published over a period of three decades, although most have appeared in the past decade. Among the (...) topics covered: the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; moral luck, and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism. (shrink)

Is realism in political theory compatible with utopianism? This article shows that it is, by reconstructing a highly restrictive realist approach to political theory for guiding legislation and public policy, drawn from the work of Adam Smith, and showing how it can accommodate Piketty’s utopian proposal for a global tax on capital. This shows not only that realism and utopianism are compatible; but how realist and utopian political theory can be carried out in concrete cases. This moves debates to more (...) interesting questions of which forms of utopianism are permissible within which forms of realism; contributes to moving the contemporary realism debates from a Methodenstreit to questions of how it can and ought to be done; and contributes to an important contemporary debate about the permissibility of utopian proposals for political and economic reform in general and Piketty’s proposed global tax on capital in particular. (shrink)

The development of novel neurotechnologies, such as brain-computer interface (BCI) and deep-brain stimulation (DBS), are very promising in improving the welfare and life prospects many people. These include life-changing therapies for medical conditions and enhancements of cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities. Yet there are also numerous moral risks and uncertainties involved in developing novel neurotechnologies. For this reason, the progress of novel neurotechnology research requires that diverse publics place trust in researchers to develop neural interfaces in ways that are overall (...) beneficial to society and responsive to ethical values and concerns. In this article, we argue that researchers and research institutions have a moral responsibility to foster and demonstrate trustworthiness with respect to broader publics whose lives will be affected by their research. Using Annette Baier’s conceptual analysis of trust, which takes competence and good will to be its central components, we propose that practices of ethical reflexivity could play a valuable role in fostering the trustworthiness of individual researchers and research institutions through building and exhibiting their moral competence and good will. By ethical reflexivity, we mean the reflective and discursive activity of articulating, analyzing, and assessing the assumptions and values that might be underlying their ethical actions and projects. Here, we share an ethics dialog tool—called the Scientific Perspectives and Ethics Commitments Survey (or SPECS)—developed by the University of Washington’s Center of Neurotechnology (CNT) Neuroethics Thrust. Ultimately, the aim is to show the promise of ethical reflexivity practices, like SPECS, as a method of enhancing trustworthiness in researchers and their institutions that seek to develop novel neurotechnologies for the overall benefit of society. (shrink)

Paul Crittenden sets out to recover the past philosophical practice of treating developmental questions as an important part of ethical inquiry and to bring moral development, moral education, and moral philosophy back together again. The first part of this extremely thorough work is concerned with the main contemporary accounts of how children come to be moral beings. Against this background, the second part consists of historical studies of major accounts of morality in a developmental context. Crittenden stresses the necessity (...) of community for moral development and also address a number of conceptual questions, including the relationship between morality and religion. (shrink)

In this book, Paul K. Moser proposes a new approach to inquiry about God, including a new discipline of the ethics for inquiry about God. It is an ethics for human attitudes and relationships as well as actions in inquiry, and it includes human responsibility for seeking evidence that involves a moral priority for humans. Such ethics includes an ongoing test, a trial, for human receptivity to goodness, including morally good relationships, as a priority in human inquiry and life. (...) Moser also defends an approach to the evidence for God that makes sense of the elusiveness and occasional absence of God in human experience. His book will be of interest to those interested in inquiry about God, with special relevance to scholars and advanced students in religious studies, philosophy, theology, and biblical studies. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that Nietzsche is a Kantian, and what being Kantian means. He accepts the idea that our perception is configured by concepts which unify and inform the world around us, and which result from a biological evolution of the human species. His Kantianism is thus biological and mainly influenced by Friedrich Albert Lange’s reading of Kant. But this Nietzschean conceptualism must be inscribed in his thought of the will to power, where the perceptive fixation of the (...) world is the result of a degeneration caused by the biological, psychological and historical recovery of the will to power. Thus, I show that Nietzsche’s Kantianism is as biological as it is axiological. (shrink)

Paul Tillich ; Volltext // Exemplar mit der Signatur: München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Var. 382 t-1/2.

I argue that the following two claims provide us with sufficiently strong reason to conclude that God came into existence from nothing a finite time in the past: that God is omnitemporal; and that there is a first moment of time. After defending the possibility of God beginning to exist ex nihilo from various objections, I critique two alternative attempts at providing an account of the relationship between an omnitemporal God and the beginning of time. I show that these either (...) fail to be an alternative to my own model or are less supported by the relevant evidence. (shrink)

The major stakeholder classes in education have three distinct ways by which they judge the quality of knowledge claims. At times this can cause considerable distraction or mis-communication among stakeholders.

Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin both have made contributions to a theology of evolution. In a 2002 essay John Haught expresses doubt that Tilllich's rather classical theology of “being” is radical enough to account for the “becoming” of evolution. Tillich's ontology of being includes the polarity of form and dynamics. Dynamics is the potentiality of being, that is, becoming. Tillich's dynamic dialectic of being and nonbeing is a more descriptive metaphor for the five mass extinctions of evolutionary (...) history than Teilhard's progress. This dialectic is also a more realistic description of cosmic evolution. Tillich's “Kingdom of God” within history as well as “the End of History,” in contrast to Teilhard's Omega Point, does not appear to contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which predicts that the universe will ultimately disintegrate. Haught's contrast/contact modes of relating science and religion would regard Teilhard's Omega Point as an expression of spiritual hope and purpose rather than a scientifically verifiable principle. The contrast/ contact position is consonant with Tillich's description of religion as part of the vertical dimension of ultimate concern and science as part of the horizontal dimension of relationships between finite objects. Tillich did not share Teilhard's optimistic vision of the future. (shrink)

Einführung in Paul Tillichs philosophische Schriften Gunther Wenz Daß der Gott Abrahams, Isaaks und Jakobs und der Gott der Philosophen der gleiche Gott sei ...

The implicit content indicating location associated with “raining” and other weather predicates is a definite description meaning “the location occupied by x,” where the individual variable “x” can be referential or bound. This position has deleterious consequences for certain varieties of radical contextualism.

Presents a survey of what Arabic philosophers, as commentators of Aristotle's _Physics_, have contributed to philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. Their influences on each other and the extent of the influences of previous Greek commentators on them, are also examined.

Aristotle argued that citizenship is like friendship, and this book applies his argument to modern society. Modern citizens may lack the concept of civic friendship, but they persist in many practices and passions that were once considered essential to it. Citizens share many similarities with friends: prejudices held in common, favoritism towards each other, and - despite disagreement on specifics - underlying agreement about what is important, such as freedom and equality. Aristotle's theory reminds us that civic friendship is a (...) factual condition of healthy societies, not a pie-in-the-sky ideal. By recognizing when it occurs and understanding it, we can build on it to counteract societal polarization. Civic friendship offers an alternative to populism and nationalism by engaging some of the same passions. In an era increasingly marked by tribalism and identity politics, this timely study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in political science, classics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

The article uses the 2010 political success of the Tea Party phenomenon as a jumping-off point to examine a number of ideological tropes and rhetorical devices in American politics. It argues that the political language of the Tea Party is not – as is often assumed – empty moralizing at the expense of intellectual depth, but rather draws on a wide variety of American political and intellectual themes and traditions. The article uses the campaign literature and polemic of key Tea (...) Party affiliates – Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, Glenn Beck, Ron Paul – as entry points to discuss the movement’s political strategies and interpretation of the role of government, individual liberty, American exceptionalism, constitutionalism, the free market, and the common people. In placing these discussions in their historical and intellectual context, the article argues for taking the Tea Party’s political message seriously, not least as a reflection of prevalent democratic concerns and frustrations with the American political system in its current incarnation. (shrink)

When French philosopher Paul Ricoeur died in 2005, he bequeathed to the world a highly regarded, widely influential body of work which established him as one of the greatest thinkers of our time. He also left behind a number of unfinished projects that are gathered here and translated into English for the first time. Living Up to Death consists of one major essay and nine fragments. Composed in 1996, the essay is the kernel of an unrealized book on the (...) subject of mortality. Likely inspired by his wife’s approaching death, it examines not one’s own passing but one’s experience of others dying. Ricoeur notes that when thinking about death the imagination is paramount, since we cannot truly experience our own passing. But those we leave behind do, and Ricoeur posits that the idea of life after death originated in the awareness of our own end posthumously resonating with our survivors. The fragments in this volume were written over the course of the last few months of Ricoeur’s life as his health failed, and they represent his very last work. They cover a range of topics, touching on biblical scholarship, the philosophy of language, and the idea of selfhood he first addressed in Oneself as Another. And while they contain numerous philosophical insights, these fragments are perhaps most significant for providing an invaluable look at Ricoeur’s mind at work. As poignant as it is perceptive, Living Up to Death is a moving testimony to Ricoeur’s willingness to confront his own mortality with serious questions, a touching insouciance, and hope for the future. (shrink)

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred. Avis examines what he calls an alternative tradition, stemming from the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth and Keats and drawing on the (...) thought of Cleridge and Newman, and experience in both modern philosophy and science. God and the Creative Imagination intriguingly draws on a number of non-theological disciplines, from literature to philosophy of science, to show us that God is appropriately likened to an artist or poet and that the greatest truths are expressed in an imaginative form. Anyone wishing to further their understanding of God, belief and the imagination will find this an inspiring work. (shrink)

_An investigation into the foundations of democratic societies and the ongoing struggle over the power of concentrated wealth_ Much of our politics today, Paul Starr writes, is a struggle over entrenchment—efforts to bring about change in ways that opponents will find difficult to undo. That is why the stakes of contemporary politics are so high. In this wide‑ranging book, Starr examines how changes at the foundations of society become hard to reverse—yet sometimes are overturned. Overcoming aristocratic power was the (...) formative problem for eighteenth‑century revolutions. Overcoming slavery was the central problem for early American democracy. Controlling the power of concentrated wealth has been an ongoing struggle in the world’s capitalist democracies. The battles continue today in the troubled democracies of our time, with the rise of both oligarchy and populist nationalism and the danger that illiberal forces will entrench themselves in power. _Entrenchment_ raises fundamental questions about the origins of our institutions and urgent questions about the future. (shrink)

A wide range of previous research has pointed out important interactional features of televised political interviews including the cooperative dimensions to encounters between interviewers and interviewees and the extent to which news interviews differ to everyday conversation. Drawing upon an analysis of 29 televised political interviews broadcast in the UK, this article seeks to build on such work. A preliminary quantitative inspection of the data suggested that a sizeable minority of interviewee responses `hearably' challenged the prior interviewer turn. A conversation (...) analytic approach to the turn-response pairs suggested that whilst a wide range of interviewer turns were potentially vulnerable to such problematizing moves - the challenges made were often boundaried. That is, in making challenges, interviewees typically refrained from developing them in highly personalized terms; they often raised them in passing and, in cases where the interviewee refused to cooperate with interviewers, they typically did so by producing a justification. Further analysis suggested that both interviewers and interviewees did not take the steps to ward off disagreement commonly found in everyday conversation - instead both interviewer and interviewee seemed to orientate to the normality of disagreement. This picture of `boundaried but normalized' challenge was made sense of in terms of different preference structures to those found in everyday talk in which both interviewee and interviewer were understood as skilfully orientating to the normativity of challenges whilst safeguarding the interview structure itself. (shrink)