Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato
Author: Drew A. Hyland File Type: pdf Given the conception of philosophy held by continental thinkers, and in particular their greater sensitivity to the kinship of philosophy and literature, Drew A. Hyland argues that they should be much more attentive to the literary dimension of Platos thinking than they have been. He believes they would find in the dialogues not the various forms of Platonism that they wish to reject, but instead a thinking much more congenial and challenging to their own predilections.By carefully examining the works of Heidegger, Derrida, Irigaray, and Cavarero, Hyland points to the tendency of continental thinkers to view Platos dialogues through the lens of Platonism, thus finding Platonic metaphysics, Platonic ethics, and Platonic epistemology, while overlooking the literary dimension of the dialogues, and failing to recognize the extent to which the form undercuts anything like the Platonism they find. The striking exception, Hyland claims, is Hans-Georg Gadamer who also demonstrates the compatibility of the Platonic dialogues with the directions of continental thinking.
Author: Michael Johnston
File Type: pdf
Corruption is a threat to democracy and economic development in many societies. It arises in the ways people pursue, use and exchange wealth and power, and in the strength or weakness of the state, political and social institutions that sustain and restrain those processes. Differences in these factors, Michael Johnston argues, give rise to four major syndromes of corruption Influence Markets, Elite Cartels, Oligarchs and Clans, and Official Moguls. Johnston uses statistical measures to identify societies in each group, and case studies to show that the expected syndromes do arise. **
Author: Susan Slyomovics
File Type: pdf
In a landmark process that transformed global reparations after the Holocaust, Germany created the largest sustained redress program in history, amounting to more than $60 billion. When human rights violations are presented primarily in material terms, acknowledging an indemnity claim becomes one way for a victim to be recognized. At the same time, indemnifications provoke a number of difficult questions about how suffering and loss can be measured How much is an individual life worth? How much or what kind of violence merits compensation? What is financial pain, and what does it mean to monetize concentration camp survivor syndrome? Susan Slyomovics explores this and other compensation programs, both those past and those that might exist in the future, through the lens of anthropological and human rights discourse. How to account for variation in German reparations and French restitution directed solely at Algerian Jewry for Vichy-era losses? Do crimes of colonialism merit reparations? How might reparations models apply to the modern-day conflict in Israel and Palestine? The author points to the examples of her grandmother and mother, Czechoslovakian Jews who survived the Auschwitz, Plaszow, and Markkleeberg camps together but disagreed about applying for the post-World War II Wiedergutmachung (to make good again) reparation programs. Slyomovics maintains that we can use the legacies of German reparations to reconsider approaches to reparations in the future, and the result is an investigation of practical implications, complicated by the difficult legal, ethnographic, and personal questions that reparations inevitably prompt. **html
Author: Deborah R. Hensler
File Type: pdf
Class action lawsuits--allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent many who seek redress--have long been controversial. The current controversy, centered on lawsuits for money damages, is characterized by sharp disagreement among stakeholders about the kinds of suits being filed, whether plaintiffs claims are meritorious, and whether resolutions to class actions are fair or socially desirable. Ultimately, these concerns lead many to wonder, Are class actions worth their costs to society and to business? Do they do more harm than good? To describe the landscape of current damage class action litigation, elucidate problems, and identify solutions, the RAND Institute for Civil Justice conducted a study using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The researchers concluded that the controversy over damage class actions has proven intractable because it implicates deeply held but sharply contested ideological views among stakeholders. Nevertheless, many of the political antagonists agree that class action practices merit improvement. The authors argue that both practices and outcomes could be substantially improved if more judges would supervise class action litigation more actively and scrutinize proposed settlements and fee awards more carefully. Educating and empowering judges to take more responsibility for case outcomes--and ensuring that they have the resources to do so--can help the civil justice system achieve a better balance between the public goals of class actions and the private interests that drive them.
Author: Dale Jacquette
File Type: epub
The debate on the status and legality of cannabis continues to gain momentum. Here, personal anecdotes combined with academic and scientific reports combine to sharpen some of the fascinating philosophical issues associated with cannabis use. ullA frank, professionally informed and playful discussion of cannabis usage in relation to philosophical inquiryllConsiders the meaning of a high, the morality of smoking marijuana for pleasure, the slippery slope to more dangerous drugs, and the human drive to alter our consciousnessllNot only incorporates contributions from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists or legal, pharmacological, and medical experts, but also non-academics associated with the cultivation, distribution, and sale of cannabisllBrings together an international team of writers from the United States, Canada, UK, Finland, Switzerland, South Africa, and New Zealandlul**
Author: Keith Dowding
File Type: pdf
This book presents thirteen essays by Keith Dowding, one of the worlds foremost authorities on political and social power. Ranging across a number of related topics - including luck, choice, freedom and rights - Dowding criticises static explanatory models of power, emphasising the need for a more dynamic approach. The alternative he proposes is a rational choice resourcist model, which takes into account the crucial factors of reputation and luck. The power of agents, notably leaders, is partially based on our perception of their power. In strategic settings luck plays a role in outcomes, but these outcomes then feed into the ability and reputation of actors, enhancing or damaging their power. Perceptions feed into reality which then feeds back into perceptions. Dowding shows how luck is related to responsibility - reducing some types of luck in outcomes will, paradoxically, also reduce responsibility. He integrates this account into our understanding of the value of choice and freedom, demonstrating that collective action provides problems for republican accounts of freedom from domination. Arguing that choice is valued instrumentally, he then shows that the liberal paradox of Amartya Sen, while demonstrating the need to balance welfare and rights, does not present the fundamental evaluational problems Sen claims. Featuring a substantial introduction written specially for the volume, Power, luck and freedom serves as an excellent overview of the work of a key thinker on power. It will support undergraduate and graduate work in political science, political sociology and political theory.
Author: Pablo Neruda
File Type: pdf
The Nobel Prize winner s classic collection of love poems.Pablo Neruda, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, finished writing The Captains Verses in 1952 while in exile on the island of Caprithe paradisal setting for the blockbuster film Il Postino (The Postman). Surrounded by sea, sun, and Capris natural splendors, Neruda addressed these poems to his lover Matilde Urrutia before they were married, but didnt publish them publicly until 1963. This complete, bilingual collection has become a classic for love-struck readers around the worldpassionately sensuous, and exploding with all the erotic energy of a new love.
Author: David Kennedy
File Type: pdf
Grief and mourning are generally considered to be private, yet universal instincts. But in a media age of televised funerals and visible bereavement, elegies are increasingly significant and open to public scrutiny. Providing an overview of the history of the term and the different ways in which it is used, David Kennedyulloutlines the origins of elegy, and the characteristics of the genrellexamines the psychology and cultural background underlying works of mourningllexplores how the modern elegy has evolved, and how it differs from canonical elegy, also looking at female elegists and feminist readingsllconsiders the elegy in the light of writing by theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Catherine Waldbylllooks at the elegy in contemporary writing, and particularly at how it has emerged and been adapted as a response to terrorist attacks such as 911.lulEmphasising and explaining the significance of elegy today, this illuminating guide to an emotive literary genre will be of interest to students of literature, media and culture.About the AuthorDavid Kennedy is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Hull. He is the editor of Necessary Steps Poetry, Elegy, Walking, Spirit and publishes widely on contemporary poetry.
Author: Beau Riffenburgh
File Type: epub
The early twentieth century was the heroic age of Antarctic exploration - a time when adventurers such as Scott and Shackleton were national icons who personified the contemporary ideal of manly struggle for the good of Empire. But, while these two are world famous to this day, Australian Douglas Mawson, whose Australasian Antarctic Expedition, undertaken in 1911 after Mawson had been a key member of Shackletons Nimrod expedition, Dr Edmund Hillary described as the greatest survival story in the history of exploration, is not. He should be, however.Mawsons expedition, undertaken on a small whaling ship called Aurora, combines several exceptionally exciting elements. Once in the Antarctic, the expedition split up into smaller parties exploring different areas. The two other members of Mawsons party died and Mawson was left to struggle hundreds of miles back to base on his own. Despite incredible odds, he made it, only to find that the rescue ship had sailed away, leaving him to face a year on his own in the Antarctic. Mawson, who had complex relationships with both Scott and Shackleton, was changed utterly by his struggles in the Antarctic and his story is a fascinating insight into the human psyche under extreme stress. **
Author: Sarah Gwyneth Ross
File Type: pdf
In this illuminating work, surveying 300 years and two nations, Sarah Gwyneth Ross demonstrates how the expanding ranks of learned women in the Renaissance era presented the first significant challenge to the traditional definition of woman in the West. An experiment in collective biography and intellectual history, The Birth of Feminism focuses on nineteen learned women from the middle ranks of society who rose to prominence in the world of Italian and English letters between 1400 and 1680. Drawing both on archival materialwills, letters, and manuscript compositions, some presented here for the first timeand on printed writings, Ross gives us an unprecedented sense of educated early modern womens lives. Sponsored and often educated by their learned fathers and other male relatives within a model that Ross terms the intellectual family, female authors publicized their works within the safety of family networks. These women, including Christine de Pizan, Laura Cereta, Margaret More Roper, Lucrezia Marinella, and Bathsua Makin, did not argue for womens political equality, but they represented and often advocated womens intellectual equality. Ross demonstrates that because of their education, these women had a renaissance during the Renaissance, and that in so doing they laid the foundation for the emancipation of womankind. ReviewA provocative and academic new reading of Renaissance feminism for a post-feminist generation.--Kate Lowe, Queen Mary, University of LondonThe Birth of Feminism comes to us as a crucial book at this time since--strange to say--we still lack synthetic, comprehensive studies in womens literary and political history prior to 1750. Rosss book spans 300 years and documents the rise of a discourse of womens rights and the culture of feminism in two nations, offering a much needed guide to the period and its chief actors.--Diana Robin, University of New MexicoThis is an impressive and very persuasive study. I would recommend it to anyone interested in womens literature, womens history, or in the history of education for the wealth of information Ross has gathered and for the effective way she builds her argument about the education of women within the intellectual family.--Elissa B. Weaver, University of ChicagoSarah Ross redraws our maps of Renaissance society and culture in this erudite and fascinating book. She recreates a lost world of women humanists, who found new meanings in ancient texts and new literary possibilities in ancient models. She rediscovers, behind them, another forgotten world, one of generous fathersreal and fictivewho helped women learn, write, and make their way into the public world. And through deft close readings of a wide range of texts, she proves that both in Italy and in England, intellectual women had an extraordinary Renaissance.--Anthony Grafton, Princeton University About the AuthorSarah Gwyneth Ross is Assistant Professor of History, Boston College.