Starting from the recent quest to investigate the human side of organizational sustainability, this study applies a variety of regression analyses to investigate the effects of Lean Operations, High Involvement Work Practices, and management behaviors on occupational safety. It tests and finds support for the hypotheses that Lean Production systems, High Involvement Work Practices, and two specific management behaviors—workers’ capability development and empowerment —positively affect occupational safety. Furthermore, empowering behaviors positively moderate the effect of Lean Operations on workers’ safety. The (...) study bridges sustainable operations literature with theories related to the ethical side of safety management, sustainable HRM, ethical leadership, and empowerment. In doing so, it contributes to the understanding of occupational safety as constitutive aspect of organizational sustainability. (shrink)

In this essay I propose an alternative theoretical framework for explicating human enhancement. The framework is based on the concepts of reciprocity, which I consider a fundamental aspect of human presence, and of mediation, which I consider a fundamental aspect of the relation between human beings and science and technology. I argue that enhancement is given by the way in which technological and scientific mediation alters the structure of the network of reciprocity characterising human presence. As a matter of fact, (...) technological mediation may turn the reciprocity of presence into a unilateral relation, which prevents any form of response. The lack of responsibility, here understood as the possibility to respond back, is determinant for the generation of a situation of power and for eliciting moral disengagement. The framework will be applied and discussed with reference to robotics technologies. (shrink)

The Roboethics is a new field of research linked to the development of robotic technologies. A very important moment in the evolution of robotic systems and technologies is around the 80’, when in Europe, Japan and United States a new generation of robots – called service robots – started to be designed. Service robots are applied to purposes different from the industrial ones: they are meant to accomplish several different tasks useful for human beings. This co-operation puts new questions about (...) ethics, which really deserve studying. Moreover, this new generation of robots opens up new ethical and societal scenarios for which both the current legal system and the ethical regulations are either obsolete or not completely appropriate. Biorobotics is the study of biological systems, from a biomechatronic point of view, with a twofold objective. On one hand, the purpose of biorobotics is to develop methodologies and technologies for designing and realising bio-inspired systems and devices, such as humanoid and animaloid robots. On the other hand, biorobotics second goal consists of designing and developing devices for biomedical applications, including diagnosis, surgery, rehabilitation, assistance, bionics and neuro-robotics. In this paper, we focus on some of the research activities carried out in our laboratories ARTS and CRIM of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, in Pisa, Italy. Drawing on direct experience, we point out and discuss some of the ethical and societal implications related to research and development of biorobotics systems and technologies. (shrink)

Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have already been achieved in laboratories. Experiments on humans and animals show that artificial devices can be controlled by neural signals. These results suggest that HBS technologies can be employed to restore sensorimotor functionalities in disabled and elderly people. At the same time, HBS research raises ethical concerns related to possible exogenous and endogenous limitations to human autonomy and freedom. The analysis of these concerns requires reflecting (...) on the availability of scientific models accounting for key aspects of sensorimotor coordination and plastic adaptation mechanisms in the brain. (shrink)

This book takes as a premise that Derrida is a profound educational thinker, who from the very beginning concerned himself with questions of pedagogy.

Starting from the recent quest to investigate the human side of organizational sustainability, this study applies a variety of regression analyses to investigate the effects of Lean Operations, High Involvement Work Practices, and management behaviors on occupational safety. It tests and finds support for the hypotheses that Lean Production systems, High Involvement Work Practices, and two specific management behaviors—workers’ capability development and empowerment —positively affect occupational safety. Furthermore, empowering behaviors positively moderate the effect of Lean Operations on workers’ safety. The (...) study bridges sustainable operations literature with theories related to the ethical side of safety management, sustainable HRM, ethical leadership, and empowerment. In doing so, it contributes to the understanding of occupational safety as constitutive aspect of organizational sustainability. (shrink)

O texto tem o objetivo de apresentar como o filósofo francês Gilles Deleuze, a partir da obra Nietzsche e a Filosofia, interpreta a Genealogia da Moral, obra escrita pelo filósofo alemão Friedrich Nietzsche, levando em consideração as formas mais gerais do niilismo: ressentimento, má consciência e ideal ascético.

In this compelling and timely treatise, cultural theorist and educator Peter Trifonas puts forth the first book-length study of Jacques Derrida's 'educational texts:' that is, those writings most explicitly concerned with the ethics and politics of the historico-philosophical structures constituting the scene of teaching. The text examines how deconstruction allows us to re-think the socio-historical and ethico-philosophical aspects of pedagogical practices and policies, including pedagogical theories that have had direct bearing on the ethical and cultural ideals forming the reason of (...) Western educational systems and the exclusion of its 'Others.'. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The chief contribution of P. Kitromilides’ Enlightenment and Revolution is that it reconstructs the Modern Greek Enlightenment as a radical programme of social and political transformation. At the same time, it describes the petering out of the Enlightenment legacy in the newly independent Kingdom, whose public life was gradually infused with a romantic nationalism with mystical and religious overtones. During the twentieth century, this led to the decoupling of the Greek public mind from the idea of Europe, which had (...) been the lodestar for the leaders of the eighteenth century Greek Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1821. The writers of the ‘Generation of the Thirties’ constructed a notion of ‘Neohellenism’ in conscious disjunction from the ‘rationalist’ legacy of the West. Still, the institutional legacy of the Enlightenment survives as the foundation of Modern Greek public life, and its resilience was successfully tested against the onslaught of the ‘politics of unreason’ in the teens of the present century. (shrink)

Responding to Jacques Derrida's vision for what a "new" humanities should strive toward, Peter Trifonas and Michael Peters gather together in a single volume original essays by major scholars in the humanities today. Using Derrida's seven programmatic theses as a springboard, the contributors aim to reimagine, as Derrida did, the tasks for the new humanities in such areas as history of literature, history of democracy, history of profession, idea of sovereignty, and history of man.

What do professional wrestling, Pot Noodle and Feng Shui have in common? Well, not much - but they all appear in this book.Critic and cultural philosopher Peter Trifonas and art historian Effie Balomenos explore the curious concept of good - and bad - taste. At once an absurd and yet entirely everyday concept, taste defines us. Our choices, from the most personal (our friends or lovers) to the most general (our politics), are all partly dependent on it.But where does taste (...) come from? Is there a true standard of taste? Are we slaves to the cruel whims of fashion? Who's in control?Good Taste is an enthralling exploration of the cultural history of an idea. In this enticing book - divided into chapters exploring cultural artefacts of absolutely all kinds - Trifonas and Balomenos warn: you are what you choose!Highlights include: TV chefs · Ozzy Osbourne and Reality TV · The 70s fashion conspiracy · Disney · Madonna · Lamborghini · The history of cleavage · High heels · Elvis · Body piercing · Hip-hop · Oprah Winfrey · Ageing rock bands · Turn-ups · Harry Potter · Fake tans and much, much more ... (shrink)

How does a picture teach a viewer to look at it, understand it, and make meaning?. “Cross-mediality and narrative textual form: A semiotic snalysis of the lexical and visual signs and codes of the picture bnook.” Semiotica, 118 : 1–70 and Peter Pericles Trifonas.. “Texts and images.” In International handbook of semiotics, Vols. 1&2, edited by Peter Pericles Trifonas. The Netherlands: Springer. Pp. 1139–1154.) The suggestion for a pictorial grammar has been derived from the fact that pictures have no unique (...) visual metalanguage and therefore require recourse to language as an instrument for pictorial analysis. The lexical-visual relationship in a text is more complex than is suggested in the question. Proponents for the semiotic autonomy of pictures have objected that the commentaries of crossmedial contexts have not asserted the semiotic priority of the lexical over the visual message. ‘Is an autonomous semiotics of visual perception possible, or does the semiotic analysis of pictorial text always require recourse to the model of language?’. (shrink)

In The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco essentially presents an educative vision of some basic semiotic principles that infuse the textual form of a popular fictional genre—the detective story. In effect, it characterizes the postmodernization of the traditional “whodunnit” moving the genre from the realm of “the real” or the plausible into the realm of “the metaphysical” or the unthinkable. The Name of the Rose is a practical application in semiotics. Or, how the aesthetics of textual production as generated (...) through the lexical signs and codes manifest the discursive text of a novel work. The semiotic twists and turns of the detective story facilitate this educational function and the purposeful transformation of the reader into an individual capable of appreciating and grasping the conflicting ideological viewpoints expressed through its dialogical structure. The detective genre enables the Umberto Eco to produce an educational narrative via the intricacies of plot in the detective story while teaching main aspects of semiotic theory. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 81-96.

Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people's professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technological advances; how to strike a balance between stimulating innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and values; whether to affirm prevalent social norms or nudge social norms (...) in a different direction; and, how to balance effectiveness versus legitimacy in techno-regulation. The four dilemmas are each treated in the context of a particular modality of regulation: law, market, social norms, and technology as a regulatory tool; and for each, we focus on particular topics? such as liability, privacy, and autonomy? that often feature as the major issues requiring regulatory attention. The paper then highlights the role and potential of the European framework of rights and values, responsible research and innovation, smart regulation and soft law as means of dealing with the dilemmas. (shrink)

For the epic journey of autumn migration, long-distance migratory birds use innate and learned information and follow strict schedules imposed by genetic and epigenetic mechanisms, the details of which remain largely unknown. In addition, bird migration requires integrated action of different multisensory systems for learning and memory, and the hippocampus appears to be the integration center for this task. In previous studies we found that contrasting long-distance migratory flights differentially affected the morphological complexity of two types of hippocampus astrocytes. Recently, (...) a significant association was found between the latitude of the reproductive site and the size of the ADCYAP1 allele in long distance migratory birds. We tested for correlations between astrocyte morphological complexity, migratory distances, and size of the ADCYAP1 allele in three long-distance migrant species of shorebird and one non-migrant. Significant differences among species were found in the number and morphological complexity of the astrocytes, as well as in the size of the microsatellites of the ADCYAP1 gene. We found significant associations between the size of the ADCYAP1 microsatellites, the migratory distances, and the degree of morphological complexity of the astrocytes. We suggest that associations between astrocyte number and morphological complexity, ADCYAP1 microsatellite size, and migratory behavior may be part of the adaptive response to the migratory process of shorebirds. (shrink)

This text examines the tensions and the dissonances in the relation between religion and public sphere in contemporary Brazil. Based on a Sociology and on an Anthropology of the phenomena of secularization and secularity, the purpose is to demonstrate the “porosity” of the Brazilian public/political system with the religious milieu. By applying a socio-historical perspective, the work attempts to understand how the boundaries between religion and politics were precariously constructed throughout the constitution of our State in Brazil, without ever having (...) been institutionally well-delimited. This vacuum, which generated concessions on the part of the State to major Christian religions, guaranteed public legitimacy to their religious symbols in official state spaces, which are, in principle, neutral and secular. However, the 1988 Constitution represented the influx of modern and secular legislation that legitimized subjects of rights such as women, black people, indigenous peoples, LGBTs, environmentalists, etc. Given that background, this reflection aims at contributing to the interpretation of the complexity involved in the multiple and contradictory presence – in the public sphere – of both major Christian religions – which are based on an agenda of conservative religious values – and liberal and libertarian projects organized by segments of civil society and public agents, which generate tensions and dissonances. To understand this reality – as a mosaic of interactions and antagonisms –, we work with the notion of “pluri-confessionality” of Mexican sociologist Roberto Blancarte and also with the notions of secularity of “recognition” and of “integration” of French political scientist Philippe Portier. Hence, we attempt to reach theoretically and empirically a broader and nuanced understanding of our public-political system in the relation with the religious dimension. (shrink)

This paper intends to sum up the main findings of the European project RoboLaw. In this paper, the authors claim that the European Union should play a pro-active policy role in the regulation of technologies so as to inform the development of technologies with its values and principles. The paper provides an explication of the rationale for analysing of a limited and heterogeneous number of robotics applications. For these applications, the following issues are addressed: whether robotics deserve a special case (...) of regulation; the direct and indirect role ethics can play in regulating technology; the transformations of both vulnerabilities and capabilities, and the effects of liability law in favouring the socially relevant applications. In conclusion, a reflection on the possibility to generalize some of the RoboLaw findings to other technologies is proposed, with respect to liability and ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pericles' Anatomy of Democratic CourageRyan BalotIn his celebrated dissertation, Adam Parry (1988, 21) outlined the traditional relationship between intelligence and action in the following way: "The popular cliché, going from Hesiod through Solon and later writers, reveals a basic distrust of the intellect. The man of action is admired, the man of intelligence and words looked on with suspicion. The philosophic writers emphasized the split by turning the distinction (...) around. The man of intelligent words knows reality, the man of action becomes a brute or a fool. Gorgias, and much more profoundly, Thucydides, see and dramatize a possible equilibrium." Although schematic, Parry's formulation rightly points to Thucydides' status as a transitional figure in conceiving the evolving relationship between intellect and action. In this article, I examine specifically the vision of courage offered by Pericles in Thucydides' History. Pericles' analysis of courage illustrates certain innovations in the classical Greek conception of intellect and action. Understanding Pericles' analysis will help to specify Parry's insight and make it more concrete.A useful place to start is Pericles' well-known, but famously ambiguous, explanation of courage:(Thuc. 2.40.3)1the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.(trans. Warner)For at least a century now, readers of Thucydides have argued that Pericles anticipates Plato's discussion of courage in the Laches, which [End Page 505] explores, among other things, the relationship between courage and knowledge.2 Plato's Nicias, for example, defines courage as "knowledge of what inspires fear and confidence (tēn tōn deinōn kai tharraleōn epistēmēn) both in war and in every other situation" (Lach. 194e11-195a1). Scholars have tended to take this connection too far, however, attributing to Thucydides a "Platonic unity of the virtues,"3 or a conception of courage that is, like Socrates', closely related or even equivalent to knowledge.4My contention is that Pericles develops a composite view of courage that requires both a properly habituated character and intellectual understanding.5 His emphasis on intellectual insight adds something new to the traditional notion of courage, but he combines the intellect with character rather than making courage equivalent to knowledge. Pericles reconfigures traditional associations between military valor and deliberation in a specifically democratic way. Speaking as he does in the traditional genre of the epitaphios, Pericles offers no explicit theoretical account of courage, but a coherent body of concepts can be extracted [End Page 506] from his rhetorical assertions. Pericles' democratic ideal of courage, finally, shows that Plato's later account of courage, in the Republic for example, is indebted to the Athenian democracy, however much Plato tried to distance himself from the democracy for the purpose of political criticism.Kenneth Dover has argued that "an archaic mode of indicating that a man was all that a man should be confined itself to two aspects of his character, his valour on the battlefield and his wisdom in discussion (sc. of tactics, organization, and other matters relevant to victory or survival in war)."6 These two aspects of the ideal could be connected as dual but largely unrelated attributes of an individual (as in Homer's Odysseus) or opposed to each other in a way that emphasized thinking (as in the philosophical tradition) or action (as in the popular tradition).7 Thucydides' Pericles develops these two facets of the ideal by showing how they are related to each other, how the Athenians exemplify them, and how the institutions and politicians of Athens, at least in the ideal case, educate and encourage the Athenians to exemplify a particular brand of democratic courage. By the end of the classical period, both Plato and Aristotle are firmly convinced that courage requires knowledge along with a properly habituated character.8In order to grapple with Pericles' connection between character and knowledge, we might return to his claim about how to evaluate the most courageous men. The sentence has led to a philological controversy on which hangs the question of whether courage is... (shrink)

Pericles' praise of the Athenian constitution presupposes a complex audience, some members of which are reluctant to hear his praise. Part of the resistance arises from doubts about the celebrated negative freedom of the private citizen (Thuc. 2.37.2-3). But it also concerns the positive political freedom of all citizens to participate equally in political life (Thuc. 2.37.1). Pericles attempts to overcome audience resistance by frankly acknowledging its source—"the equal share" (compare Aristotle's arithmetic equality) and its allegedly unfair consequences for the (...) rich—and by showing why the principle does not entail class domination. All citizens and classes share in governance, without sectarian injustice. (shrink)

As the most famous and important political leader in Athenian history, Pericles has featured prominently in descriptions and analysis of Athenian democracy from antiquity to the present day. Although contemporary historians have tended to treat him as representative of values like liberty and equality, Loren J. Samons, II demonstrates that the quest to make Athens the preeminent power in Greece served as the central theme of Pericles' career. More nationalist than humanist and less rationalist than populist, Pericles' vision for Athens (...) rested on the establishment of an Athenian reputation for military success and the citizens' willingness to sacrifice in the service of this goal. Despite his own aristocratic ancestry, Pericles offered the common and collective Athenian people the kind of fame previously available only to heroes and nobleman, a goal made all the more attractive because of the Athenians' defensiveness about Athens' lackluster early history. (shrink)

Not the least pleasure in reading a book so vital and imaginative as Mr. Cornford's lies in the vitalising effect it has on the imagination of the reader. The results may or may not be correct: Mr. Cornford may or may not agree with them: but it is perhaps the best of compliments to a writer that he should produce such an effect at all. In the present instance his masterly analysis of the character and significance of Cleon as an (...) actor in Thucydides’ historic drama has suggested an interpretation of Pericles’ position in the tragedy, which, though somewhat different from Mr. Cornford's own estimate of that great figure, is yet in accordance with his general conception of the work as a whole, designed to show Retribution following on overbearing Ambition and overweening Desire. From the time of Grote this conception has been familiar enough in outline, but Mr. Cornford fills it in with a wonderful richness of detail and illustration, and in particular draws a striking parallel with the vast scheme of Retribution in the Oresteia. (shrink)

Plato's Menexenus and Pericles' Funeral Oration.

Isabelle Stengers’ cosmopolitical proposal is an influential attempt by a European philosopher to transform the burdensome legacy of Western thought. Reconsidering her comprehensive engagement with the cosmology of the British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, this article reveals two concepts as foundational to Stengers’ cosmopolitics: civilization and commerce. While not usually associated with a critical political theory, in her development of what we call a commercial political ontology, Stengers explores the modes of inheriting these ostracized notions. By tracing the (...) genealogy of this political ontology back to Pericles’ first explicit defense of persuasion as a requisite for civilization, we argue that Pericles’ famous funeral oration provides the structure for Whitehead’s cosmology, and, ultimately, Stengers’ cosmopolitics. As such, we understand her cosmopolitical proposal as a dress rehearsal of a funeral eulogy for bourgeois society. (shrink)

La obra de Francisco Rodríguez Adrados_, La democracia ateniense_, fue canónica desde la fecha de aparición, en la segunda fase del tardofranquismo y en su edición final hacia el final de la dictadura. El presente trabajo analiza, primero, sus bases ideológicas; segundo, la priorización del comentario de textos y de las herramientas de la filología en el análisis histórico, es decir, el _textocentrismo _de la obra, y apunta los límites y logros del helenista español. Nuestra lectura se fundamenta en un (...) análisis textual y contextual. Explora la elección de las fuentes principales del análisis de Adrados, el impacto de la filología e historiografía alemanas decimonónicas y de la primera mitad del XX, y examina su concepción de la historia, los logros, innovaciones y su lectura de la democracia ateniense, a caballo entre una visión progresista y crítica de las limitaciones de la misma, en comparación con las democracias representativas. Se considera la formación y la configuración del campo de la filología clásica en España en el franquismo en el marco de la posguerra y cómo todo ello marcó _La democracia ateniense_, una obra seminal surgida de una forma de escolástica creativa. (shrink)

The main claim of this paper is that Plato's views on social and individual good as well as his criticism of democracy can be best understood as a conscious attempt to contrast with Periclean conceptions of freedom and democracy a new point of view. It will be argued that it is a mistake to see Plato's view as either democratic or authoritarian. An adequate understanding of Plato will focus on some difficult questions concerning the relationship between freedom and knowledge; questions (...) that are rarely if ever faced clearly today. The Platonic conception and its clash with Pericles raises also some important and still unresolved questions about human motivation. (shrink)

Ferdinand Mount has been fascinated by the great thinkers and politicians who have shaped human history over the past two millennia In this fascinating, and provocative book, he examines the proposals for a political theory from a number of widely different historical figures. Twelve key people, from the great orator and statesman of Ancient Greece (Pericles) to the inspiration of the founding of the state of Pakistan (Muhammad Iqbal) we take a colourful and rip-roaring journey through the historical figures who (...) have both inspired and provoked Mount in equal measure. The lives of men such as Jesus Christ, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Thomas Jefferson are discussed and comparisons are drawn between the various approaches each figure promoted in their works - whether philosophical, or political theories. For those wishing to be guided by Mount's choices and be swept along by his brilliantly erudite prose, this will be a particular enjoyable read. Lots of colour, humour and passion governed all these people careers and Mount brings them to life like no one else can. Praise for the international-bestselling Tears of the Rajas:- 'Mount is a skilled and fluent writer who does his subject justice' --Literary Review 'Mount relates this remarkable story with a gentle wit, a lightness of touch, a boyish enthusiasm as well as a genius for the telling pen-portrait... It is a remarkable story, and cumulatively amounts to an epic panorama of British Indian history much more substantial than the 'collection of Indian tales, a human jungle book', which Mount modestly describes as his aim in the introduction.' --William Dalrymple, The Spectator 'What [Mount] provides instead is of far greater value: a perceptive antidote to nationalistic prejudicial thinking, and an opportunity for a greater understanding of the aftereffects of British imperialism in some of the world's most troubled regions.' Sunday Times 'Although Tears of the Rajas is replete with stirring tales of adventure, it is a deeply humane book. Mount's heart is at all times with the people of India, whose lives are turned upside down by blundering attempts at modernisation.' The Times. (shrink)