Access to energy is essential for our daily lives, economic growth, environment, and sustainability. However, our use of fossil fuels has contributed to global climate change, which poses a significant threat to society and life on this planet. Yet, it has been challenging to reconcile the perceived conflict between economics and climate change, which has created deep divisions in our society. ENERGY 2040: Aligning Innovation, Economics, and Decarbonization provides a holistic and comprehensive analysis of the ongoing energy transition (...) and its underlying causes. It presents a viable path to meet the energy, economic, and climate goals by weaving together science, technology, economics, policy, entrepreneurship, and geopolitics. The book presents a captivating narrative that brings together a range of topics, including new and disruptive technologies with steep learning rates, the challenges of the future power grid, the democratization of energy, and reducing the timeline from science to impact at scale. It also explores the complex role of scientific research, disruptive deep tech, entrepreneurship, and policy in accelerating this energy transformation. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the future of energy. Whether you're a scientist, energy-industry practitioner, policymaker, investor, student, or concerned citizen, this book offers critical insights into the complex and evolving world of energy, innovation, decarbonization, and climate change. (shrink)

Considering the vulnerable climatic conditions in most parts of the planet, a successful transition toward a carbon-free future is a critical challenge worldwide. In this respect, around 35% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emission is associated with the power sector. To this end, a vast of electrical energy has been used by the people in buildings. Specifically, a significant amount of energy in buildings is used for heating, cooling, and ventilation. While the available literature highlights the importance of neat, (...) clean, and green electrical energy for the decarbonization of society, a critical gap exists in such literature. That is, most of the literature under this stream deals with the supply side of electrical energy, while the demand side was neglected. To bridge this critical knowledge gap, this study investigates how the CSR engagement of a hotel organization can promote the energy-related pro-environmental behavior among the employees with the intervening effect of employees’ environmental commitment and Green intrinsic motivation. Further, the conditional indirect role of altruistic values was also tested in this study. The data were collected from different hotel employees in Pakistan with the help of a self-administered questionnaire. We tested the hypothesized relationship through structural equation modeling. The results confirmed that CSR can be a potential motivator to impact the ERPEB of employees, while EMEC and GRIM mediated this relationship significantly. The findings of this study also confirmed the conditional indirect role of altruistic values. These findings offer various theoretical and practical contributions which are conversed in detail. (shrink)

Niniejszy artykuł jest recenzją ważnej pracy Ewy Bińczyk Uspołecznienie Antropocenu. Ekowerwa i ekologizowanie ekonomii z 2023 roku, wydanej w wiodącej humanistycznej serii „Polityka w kulturze” Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. Streszczając podstawowe ustalenia książki, wskazuję na bogactwo interpretowanych w niej teorii i odautorskie ujęcia współczesnych nurtów ekonomii ekologicznej i teorii dewzrostowych. Podkreślam jej istotność jako przekonującej recepty na to, jak można skutecznie włączyć nauki humanistyczne i społeczne w debatę na temat katastrofy klimatycznej i sposobów na odwrócenie dewastowania społecznego świata. (...) Recenzowana książka przekonuje, że dzisiaj, jak nigdy wcześniej, potrzebujemy humanistyki, która chce zmieniać świat, dobrze zorientowanej we współczesności, jednocześnie eksperckiej i popkulturowej. (shrink)

An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its (...) future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future. (shrink)

The article examines the key conclusions and recommendations to candidate countries and potential candidates for accession, set out by the European Commission in the annual Communication on the EU enlargement policy in 2022. For better understanding of the essence of the Commission’s Communication, this article the author analyses the realities faced by the EU with the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale war against Ukraine. According to scholars and experts, the war changed Europe more profoundly than any event since the (...) end of the Cold War. It is found that the war clearly emphasized the attractiveness of EU membership and strengthened its transformative power, which was formed thanks to the values, diversity of the societies of the Member States, fundamental freedoms and way of life of the Union. In this context, one can agree with the statement of scholars that the real challenges that the EU cannot avoid if it wants to become more authoritative and strategically autonomous are the strengthening, not the weakening of the European level (institutional and legal systems, common EU policies) under a strict democratic control. The analysis of the conclusions and recommendations in the Commission’s Communication allowed us to conclude that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the policy of EU enlargement was returned to the forefront of the EU’s agenda. Evidence of this was, firstly, granting the status of a candidate for accession to Ukraine and Moldova and a potential candidate – to Georgia, and, secondly, a joint search by the EU and its Member States for ways to activate and speed up the process of European integration of the countries of the Western Balkans region. In addition, it should be noted that the cross-cutting themes of the Commission’s conclusions and recommendations are EU security and energy policy, key areas of the Green Course, in particular decarbonization of the economy, as well as the issue of recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. A separate emphasis in the Commission’s Communication is placed on the reforms continued by the countries of the Western Balkans, which are necessary to fulfill the accession criteria. (shrink)

Analyzes the relationship of power, bureaucracy, and change in modern society.

La Société qui vient [The Society to Come], a book edited by Princeton professor and current holder of the Chair of Public Health at the Collège de France, Didier Fassin, cannot be accused of sinning by modesty. This is a collective work of more than 1300 pages, grouped in seven parts and comprising no fewer than 64 chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a fundamental question of our present time and is written by an author who is an expert (...) in her or his domain or field of research. Each of the first six parts deals with a set of broad themes of general interest: ‘challenges ( enjeux), policies, worlds, inequalities, recognition and exploitation’. A seventh, final, and non-thematic part is free of a prior theme and is composed of non-French authors. (shrink)

The main emphasis of this new book from Luigino Bruni is a praise of heterogeneity, arguing that society works when different people are able to cooperate in many different ways. The author engages in a novel approach to reciprocity looking at its different forms in society, from cautious or contractual interactions, to the reciprocity of friendship to unconditional behaviour. Bruni'ss historical-methodological analysis of reciprocity is a way of examining the interface between political economy and the issue of sociality, (...) generally characterized by 'two hundred years of solitude' of the homo economicus. This historical analysis exposes an absence and this book looks at the reasons why among the many forms of reciprocity present in the civil life economics has chosen to deal just with the simplest ones. The second part of the book is an analysis of the interactions of the three forms of reciprocity faced with a forth strategy; the non-reciprocity. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, society's wealthiest members have claimed an ever-expanding share of income and property. It has been a true counterrevolution, says Pierre Rosanvallon--the end of the age of growing equality launched by the American and French revolutions. And just as significant as the social and economic factors driving this contemporary inequality has been a loss of faith in the ideal of equality itself. An ambitious transatlantic history of the struggles that, for two centuries, put political and economic equality (...) at their heart, The Society of Equals calls for a new philosophy of social relations to reenergize egalitarian politics. For eighteenth-century revolutionaries, equality meant understanding human beings as fundamentally alike and then creating universal political and economic rights. Rosanvallon sees the roots of today's crisis in the period 1830-1900, when industrialized capitalism threatened to quash these aspirations. By the early twentieth century, progressive forces had begun to rectify some imbalances of the Gilded Age, and the modern welfare state gradually emerged from Depression-era reforms. But new economic shocks in the 1970s began a slide toward inequality that has only gained momentum in the decades since. There is no returning to the days of the redistributive welfare state, Rosanvallon says. Rather than resort to outdated notions of social solidarity, we must instead revitalize the idea of equality according to principles of singularity, reciprocity, and communality that more accurately reflect today's realities. (shrink)

The Society tor Exact Philosop-hy was founded :in·l97D at a meeting held at McGill University in Montreal on 4-5 November at which was organised iby Mario Bunge. Funding for the meeting iwas provided by SDiii the International Union of Hsistory and Philosophy of cience (vson..

In this chapter, I comment on the organization of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and on SPEP as an organization by describing its inspirations as an “Openness Toward and Being Other,” its enthusiasm in terms of “Eyes Wide Open,” some dangers and shortsightedness it faced as “Eyes Wide Shut,” the relation of continental philosophy to phenomenology as “Continental Drift,” and the understanding of SPEP as a phenomenological movement as “Edging Beyond Itself.” I conclude with some reflections on (...) the Phenomenology Research Center. (shrink)

The institutionalization of natural knowledge in the form of a scientific society may be interpreted in several ways. If we wish to view science as something apart, unchanging in its intellectual nature, we may regard the scientific enterprise as presenting to the sustaining social system a number of absolute and necessary organizational demands: for example, scientific activity requires acceptance as an important social activity valued for its own sake, that is, it requires autonomy; it is separate from other forms (...) of enquiry and requires distinct institutional modes; it is public knowledge and requires a public, universalistic forum; it is productive of constant change and requires of the sustaining social system a flexibility in adapting to change. Support for such an interpretation may be found in the rise of modern science in seventeenth-century England, France, and Italy and in the accompanying rise of specifically scientific societies. Thus, the founding of the Royal Society of London may be interpreted as the organizational embodiment of immanent demands arising from scientific activity—the cashing of a blank cheque payable to science written on society's current account. (shrink)

The Society "Knowledge" of Ukraine began the activity of the Department of Religious Studies. The Council of Lecturers is formed consisting of 24 people, among them are well-known philosophers, historians, sociologists - religious scholars: Doctors of Philosophy B.Lobovik, M.Zakovich, A. Kolodnyy, Yu.Kalinin, P.Kosuha, M.Rybachuk, P.Yarotsky, candidate of philosophical sciences M. Babiy, S. Golovashchenko, V. Yelensky, M.Kyryushko, O.Sagan, V.Suyarko, L.Filipovich and others.

If we want to think about Michael Novak’s contribution to the development of democracy and the progress of society in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it will be necessary to look at several authors from whom he drew his ideas. With the help of the Italian moralist, Giuseppe Angelini, we will try to explain the historical and contemporary development of the concept of development as understood in the Social Doctrine of the Church and Novak’s commentaries on John (...) Paul II’s encyclicals on progress and development. Novak cites “Aquinas’s forgotten conclusion that social order is based on civil dialogue”. With these reflections, he seeks to build on the work of other prominent American philosophers and political scientists, such as John Courtney Murray, Paul Steidl-Meier, and others, while presenting his vision of economic and social progress for the countries living under the totalitarian regime of the Soviet bloc. The most important ideas here are directed towards notions such as the right to economic initiative and especially a notion of genuine individual freedom in society. (shrink)

Every serious problem creates an intellectual field and the greater the difference between the scale of the problem and the initial possibilities of solving it, the stronger the field. Concepts and ideas connected with other problems are drawn into the field, and new ideas, models, conceptions, doctrines, theories, and hypotheses are generated within it.

ABSTRACT The problem that the "posthuman" must cope with is complex: how can one embrace both anti-humanistic problematization and deconstruction of the human subject by post-structuralism and, at the same time, link the capacity of techno-science for de-humanization with the possibility for inventing posthuman subjectivity? Consideration of the posthumanization of the human must expand further from the cyborgization based on the strengthening of human individuals' capacity, and there is need of a paradigm shift for us to rethink and reconceptualize the (...) posthuman within the ontological and sociopolitical relational networking beyond the opposition of technocentric determinism and humancentric instrumentalism. Human beings were produced in the disciplinary society in the form of self-disciplined "individuals" and have been produced in the control society in the form of de-individualized "dividuals," respectively. If so, then what will the form of human beings be in the posthuman society outside or after the control society, which has yet to arrive? In this paper, pointing out the limitations of discussions on cyborgization and examining Deleuze's diagnosis of the control society based on digital technology, I argue that we can find a new possibility for posthuman subjectivity in Simondon's "transindividual relationship" complemented by Guattari's "transversality." I propose that it will be possible for posthuman society to be produced when the transindividual relationships based on the transductive operation of technological invention realizing the common natural potentiality are realized, and a high degree of transversal communication that prevents the subjugation of this collectivity is maintained. RESUMO O problema com o qual o "pós-humano" deve lidar é complexo: como alguém pode abraçar tanto a problematização e a construção anti-humanística do sujeito humano pelo pós-estruturalismo e, ao mesmo tempo, conectar a capacidade de tecnociência à desumanização com a possibilidade de inventar uma subjetividade pós-humana? Considerações sobre pós-humanização do humano devem expandir para além da ciborguezação baseada no fortalecimento da capacidade de indivíduos humanos, e existe a necessidade de uma mudança de paradigma para que possamos repensar e reconceitualizar o pós-humano dentro da rede relacional ontológica e sociopolítica trabalhando além da oposição do determinismo tecnocêntrico e do instrumentalismo humanocêntrico. Seres humanos foram produzidos na sociedade disciplinar na forma de "indivíduos" autodisciplinados e têm sido produzidos na sociedade de controle na forma de "divíduos" desindividualizados, respectivamente. Nesse caso, qual será a forma dos seres humanos na sociedade pós-humanista do lado de fora ou após a sociedade de controle, que ainda está por chegar? Neste trabalho, aponto as limitações de discussões sobre ciborguezação e examino o diagnóstico de Deleuze sobre a sociedade de controle baseada na tecnologia digital, argumento que podemos encontrar uma nova possibilidade para a subjetividade pós-humana no "relacionamento transindividual" de Simondon complementado pela "transversalidade" de Guattari. Proponho que será possível que uma sociedade pós-humana seja produzida quando os relacionamentos transindividuais forem baseados na operação transdutiva das invenções tecnológicas, percebendo que a potencialidade comum natural seja atingida, e um alto grau de comunicação transversal que evite que a subjugação dessa coletividade seja mantido. (shrink)

In this article, Andreas Reckwitz replies to the four critical commentaries of Patrick Baert, Andreas Pettenkofer, Austin Harrington and Sally Haslanger on his book The Society of Singularities. In this context, he discusses the general position of this book within the landscape of contemporary social theory and the question of what a ‘social logic of the unique’ means. He enters the question in how far his analysis of the new middle class differs from Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of the new (...) petty bourgeoisie, emphasizing the combination of an orientation towards inner experience and social prestige in his account of the new middle class. He discusses the question of whether neoliberalism is responsible for the proneness to disappointment which the late-modern culture of self-actualization implies. Finally, he works out the differences between the type of critical analytics which his book implies and normative critical theory. (shrink)

Confronted by answering a complex question such as ‘What are the Limit(s) of Compromise?’ when ‘unpacking State-Society Relations in the Urban Space’, some problematising thoughts are offered to further elaborate urban studies by resorting to systems thinking and its leverage points concept. Both social and ecological issues are addressed, and specific references to Venice, Italy, are offered, including recent grassroot experiences. The dissertation includes some epistemological dilemmas and some initial projections to start to measure ourselves with a new epoch, (...) able to interact with all of the above: social, ecological, urban, and power/governance dimensions. (shrink)

In this sequel of my previous publication, I will continue my discussion of the word tian as it appears in the Guodian texts. I shall argue that, from natural order arises xing, human's distinctive potentiality, which is endowed by heaven to follow and be guided by the heavenly principle. I thereafter will elaborate the sages' role as cultural creators. The distinct roles of heaven and humanity are further deepened when tian and ming are perceived as the determinants of an individual's (...) success or failure. I will go on to show how the word tian can be understood as the source or underlying pattern that brings about coincidental or synchronous events and experiences. (shrink)

The Dearing Report emphasised the idea of a 'learning society' as the new context of UK higher education, but conceived this on a model of adaptivity to economically- and technologically-driven change. While there are real shifts in their social relations here with which universities have to reckon, they can also be understood on a much richer model of exploratory social intelligence. The growing concern for environmental sustainability is both a recognition of the need for this alternative model, and a (...) major ground of its importance. (shrink)

The Society of Control is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze in the early 1990s to highlight the transition from Michel Foucault’s Disciplinary Society to a new social constitution of power assisted by digital technologies. The Society of Control is organized around switches, which convert data, and, in this way, exercise power. These switches take data inputs (digitized information about individuals) and transform them into outputs (decisions) based on their pre-programmed instructions. I call these switches “automated (...) decision-making algorithms” (ADMAs) and look at ethical issues that arise from their impact on human freedom. I distinguish between negative and positive aspects of freedom and examine the impact of the ADMAs on both. My main argument is that freedom becomes endangered in this new ecosystem of computerized control, which makes individuals powerless in new and unprecedented ways. Finally, I suggest a few ways to recover freedom, while preserving the economic benefits of the ADMAs. (shrink)

Today, the doctrine of the Living Ethics and its media institution - the Roerich movement - is relatively little studied by academic religious studies. Such a situation is characteristic of both foreign and domestic religious studies. Meanwhile, the Roerich movement and its doctrine, which was actively promoted in the broad masses two decades ago, remains the subject of international religious life. The cells of this movement are also available in Ukraine. The specificity of their present state is that they have (...) significant connections with the post-Soviet Rheerich movement and thus take part in the processes characteristic of this movement. However, both general and individual processes that are developing in the Roerich movement in general, are now out of scientific coverage of their contemporary academic religious studies. (shrink)

Conducting ethnographies in the business and society (BAS) domain is often a lonely odyssey for early-career researchers (ECRs), whose emotional struggles are frequently concealed behind celebrated research outcomes. I highlight the emotional stress during their research and call for solutions beyond their personal responsibility. I offer five suggestions to combat negative emotions and help ECRs navigate these challenges through collaborative efforts and systemic changes.

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

The article appraises Habermas's recent writings on theology and social theory and their relevance to a new sociology of religion in the `post-secular society'. Beginning with Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Habermas revisits his earlier thesis of the `linguistification of the sacred', arguing for a `rescuing translation' of the traditional contents of religious language through pursuit of a via media between an overconfident project of modernizing secularization, on the one hand, and a fundamentalism of religious orthodoxies, (...) on the other. Several questions, however, must be raised about this current project. How far can Habermas engage adequately with religious ideas of the absolute while still retaining certain broadly functionalist theoretical premises? Is the notion of an ongoing secularization process in the `post-secular society' a contradiction in terms? What appropriate `limits and boundaries' are to be accepted between the domains of knowledge and faith, and how strictly can they be drawn? How coherent is the notion of `methodological atheism', and how consistently can Habermas pursue the project of a `religious genealogy of reason'? (shrink)

This article engages the question—what is the right business‐society relationship? We consider three perspectives that seek to address the relationship: corporate social responsibility (CSR), social entrepreneurship (SE), and conscious capitalism (CC). We take a macroapproach considering how commentary about these approaches establishes a direction for corporate practice and its relationship to key stakeholder groups. We argue that these perspectives are ‘D'iscourses that provide arguments for and articulations about the direction of corporate practice and the business‐society relationship. To organize (...) our review of each perspective, and focus our critique, for each we highlight (a) drivers and influencers, (b) core assumptions and defining features, and (c) approaches and exemplars. Although distinct, all emphasize effective business practices as key to meeting social needs. CSR suggests legitimizing business practice; SE relocates business practices; and CC seeks to reimagine/rehabilitate business for social good. Ultimately, we conclude that these Discourses lack a clear communicative focus in terms of decision making within these organizations. We attend to this and other implications, and offer avenues for further research. (shrink)